The Grange Prize 2011 Shortlist: Nandini Valli

The Grange Prize 2011 is Canada's only major public voted art prize. Vote now at http://www.thegrangeprize.com

One of the less historicized, recently celebrated strains in Indian photography is the performative photograph. Nandini Valli Muthiah has rapidly emerged as one of its foremost exponents. Nandini draws upon a long, established tradition in Indian popular art, the hyperrealist painted calendar poster of the gods. It is a widely recognized style, one that incorporates traditional painting and the painted photograph within a "mythologized" space. The element of subversion lies in the way in which the heroic figure is represented within normal or "modern" environments. A blue-bodied god in a hotel room, or young girls masquerading as Indira Gandhi at a fancy dress show, are comments on India's perception of the heroic as much as on middle-class aspirations. Nandini Valli Muthiah approaches photography much like a cinema auteur, constructing every aspect of her frame. Her work shows a mature and ironic understanding of a shifting aesthetic field and value system in an increasingly globalizing India.

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