Being There; What is Essential

Though Yamini Nayar's work is most easily recognized as photography, her practice is best situated somewhere between performance, sculpture and photography. Nayar uses found objects to create sculptures that she then arranges to create a scene, much like a theatre or film set before she picks up a camera. After photographing the scene she destroys the set. Nayar comments, "I destroy them because it would be like walking through a film set after having fallen in love with the cinematic moment [...] My sculptures are never meant to be seen as works in themselves. Frankly, my creative life culminates in large sheets of color photographic paper. I am much more interested in bringing images into the world than actual objects. They are doorways into alternative worlds that flirt with actuality, and I find this idea extremely seductive." (Artist Statement, D. Pal, '25 Artists to Watch', Elle India, Mumbai, November 2012, p. 160)

Nayar's works are "[...] both romantic and apocalyptic, and are widely recognized for their hypnotic, dreamlike quality." (H. Hurst, 'Yamini Nayar: Artist to Watch', Art Economist Magazine, Volume 1, Issue 10, 2011, p. 65) In recent years, Nayar has exhibited with the Queensland Art Gallery, Australia (2012), Chelsea Art Museum, New York (2011) and Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati (2010).