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Dayanita Singh is a photographer renowned for her elegant portraits and quiet interiors. Depicted mostly in black and white are images of urban middle and upper class families and their environments. These images capture all aspests of everyday life; from the mudane daily activities of work and rest, to the more elaborate commemorations of life and death. Moving away from the people within her frame, Singh, more recently, has begun to focus...
Dayanita Singh is a photographer renowned for her elegant portraits and quiet interiors. Depicted mostly in black and white are images of urban middle and upper class families and their environments. These images capture all aspests of everyday life; from the mudane daily activities of work and rest, to the more elaborate commemorations of life and death. Moving away from the people within her frame, Singh, more recently, has begun to focus on the physical space which surrounds them. Her impeccable shots are an outcome of sincere observation and utmost patience.

“Dayanita's work is far from straight forward documentary, neither is it a pictorial catalogue of India's rich and famous. More specifically her family portraits would locate her in the line of Diane Arbus or even Nan Goldin. I would argue that such comparisons are simplistic and Dayanita's own development will render them redundant. Dayanita's particular quality is the enigmatic mix of ease and tension that she seems to draw out of her subject, even as she fixes them with a degree of informed objectivity that approximates the documentary style. Yet it is in the absent self that suggests that she is somehow herself within each frame…” explains curator and art critic Gayatri Sinha.

Dayanita Singh was born in New Delhi in 1961. From 1980 to 1986 she studied Visual Communication at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahemdabad, and in 1988, she completed a course in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the International Centre of Photography, New York. Having participated in numerous shows worldwide, Dayanita’s most recent solo endeavors include ‘Dream Villa’ at Frith Street Gallery, London; ‘Go Away Closer and Sent a Letter’ at Hermes Pace, Berlin; and ‘Sent a Letter’ at Nature Morte, Berlin, all in 2008; Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, and Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai, in 2007; Nature Morte, New Delhi, in 2006; and ‘Beds and Chairs’ at Valentina Bonomo Gallery, Rome, also in 2006. Her most recent group shows include, ‘Indian Highway’ at Serpentine Gallery, London, in 2008; ‘Wedded Bliss: The Marriage of Art and Ceremony’ at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, in 2008; ‘Philosophy of the Bedroom’ at the Chelsea Art Museum, New York, the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, and the Leeds City Art Gallery, in 2007; and ‘Summer Exhibition’ at Frith Street Gallery, London, in 2006.

In 2008, Dayanita received the Prince Claus Award, Amsterdam, and the Robert Gadner Fellowship, from Harvard University, Boston.

The artist lives and works in New Delhi.

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