Nandan Ghiya

Born in 1980 in Jaipur, Rajasthan, Nandan Ghiya is a contemporary visual artist whose practice explores the intersections of photography, technology, cultural identity and collective memory. A graduate in Fashion Design from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi, Ghiya draws upon the visual history of traditional Indian studio photography to examine how images shape our understanding of identity, history and representation.

Working with vintage photographs, wooden frames, acrylic paint and digital imagery, Ghiya creates layered mixed-media works that bring the past into dialogue with the present. His practice reinterprets the conventions of early Indian studio portraiture, combining archival imagery with contemporary visual elements to question the boundaries between reality and imagination, tradition and modernity. Through these juxtapositions, he reflects on the impact of digital technology on cultural heritage and the evolving nature of personal and collective identities.

Ghiya has exhibited widely in India and internationally. His notable exhibitions include Studio Portraits from the 22nd Century at Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai; Ellipsis: Nandan Ghiya’s Spectral Emanations at Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai;  and Nandan Ghiya: Atom to Pixel at Kalakriti Art Gallery, Hyderabad. His work has also been featured in POSTDATE: Photography and Inherited History in India at the San Jose Museum of Art, California, and the Ulrich Museum of Art, Kansas, in 2015. His work is part of the Kadist collection.

Based in Jaipur, Ghiya continues to explore how images, objects and emerging technologies shape contemporary perceptions of history, identity and cultural memory.