Dayanita Singh: Dream Villa

Known for her captivating photographs of the less obvious side of Indian society Dayanita Singh’s images range from the life of a Delhi eunuch to portraits of upper middle class families to the empty interiors of homes and museums. Publishing has also become a significant part of the artist’s practice: in her books, often published without text, she experiments with different ways of producing and viewing photographs. Until now Singh used primarily back and white photography – Dream Villa presents the largest single body of the artist’s colour work shown to date.

The exhibition explores how the night transforms what seems ordinary by day into something mysterious. These lush photographs are saturated with intense colour, they present a landscape which exists as much in the artist’s imagination as in the real world; Singh travels to many different cities never knowing where Dream Villa or its inhabitants will present themselves. The empty streets, the arrangements of neon lights and the silent façades have an unsettling and at times sinister atmosphere, this is a place where nothing is quite as it seems – it comes into being at night, when all is lit by artificial light and the moon is just ornamentation.