In his personal work, Bharat Sikka offers a unique brand of fashion photography, a kind of “fashion reporting” where the environment takes center stage and the model must instead adapt to it. Its beauty is one of contrast, between two worlds that join in the sensuality of being.
Born in 1973, Bharat Sikka left India for New York to study at the Parsons School of Design and pursue a career as a photographer.
Sikka’s work reflects his native country’s quest for identity in a rapidly developing global economy. He first gained attention with his “environmental” series portraits, Indian Men, exhibited in New York in 2003. His cityscape series, Space in Between, appeared at the Rencontres d’Arles in 2007.
“Although my intention was also to photograph the progress and the change that India is going through, I insisted on showing our shortfalls and what we were going to abandon, culturally and ethnically. These pictures also highlight the inevitable chaos and confusion in a country leapfrogging from a backward, highly traditional environment to an ultramodern one, rather than undergoing gradual change.[…] The context we live in can consume us to such an extent that we become oblivious to its uniqueness, and the everyday quality of the subject can be easily overlooked.”
His latest series, Matter, avoids stereotypes: eschewing vibrant colors, he limits his palette to blacks, greys and whites to capture the near dramatic marks of a traditional culture clashing with modernity.
Since his first exhibition Indian Men at the Artists Space in NYC, his work has been displayed in numerous national and international exhibitions, including at the Rencontres d’Arles in 2007 and at the National Museum of India in 2008.
Bharat Sikka has contributed to magazines and publications such as the New Yorker, I.D, Vogue, Vogue Homme International, Details and TIME magazine.
Séverine Morel
