ARTICLE
Bharat Sikka (b. 1973)
Simultaneously he was also working on a project on gender and sexuality — commissioned by Photoworks, alongside Olivia Arthur – called The Marlborough Theatre, named after the theatre-bar frequented by the Queer community in Brighton, UK. Inspired by Sikka’s father who was a combat engineer in the Indian army, The Sapper (2019) picks through childhood memories and relationship with a parent who had been absent for long periods of time while imbibing elements of his father’s life. Engineering draughts, construction and demolition plans, tools such as rulers overlap with landscape and portrait photography. Sikka’s photographs have appeared in commercial magazines such as Atmos, Centrefold and more notably, he contributed photographs for The New York Times column on Ramakrishna Yadav, known widely as Baba Ramdev. Sikka is also acclaimed for his fashion photography featured in Vogue India, Vanity Fair and GQ India, amongst others. His work has been exhibited at Nature Morte, New Delhi; National Museum, New Delhi: Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai; The Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2017); Whitechapel Gallery, London; International Centre for Photography, New York; and 1×1 Gallery, Dubai, amongst others. In 2002 he was accepted into the Julian Meijer photography agency.
At the time of writing, Sikka lives and works between Delhi and Goa.
Bibliography
“Bharat Sikka: Matter, Amsterdam”. Aesthetica, September 12, 2013.https://aestheticamagazine.com/bharat-sikka-matter-show-amsterdam/#:~:text=Matter%20is%20a%20new%20series,Vanity%20Fair%20and%20Vogue%20India
Bharat Sikka. “Spaces in Between”. Accessed on May 05, 2021.http://www.bharatsikka.com/spaceinbetween/1421
Nature Morte. “Bharat Sikka Artist Bio”. Accessed May 04, 2021.http://naturemorte.com/artists/bharatsikka/
“Nature Morte Presents: ‘The Sapper’ by Bharat Sikka”. Mash. Accessed on May 04, 2021https://www.mashindia.com/nature-morte.php
“Celebrating the Decade: Bharat Sikka”. Platform Magazine, original interview first published 2017.https://www.platform-mag.com/art/celebrating-the-decade-bharat-sikka.html
Lachowskyj, Cat and Bharat Sikka. “Interview: A Life’s Work”. Accessed May 05, 2021.https://www.lensculture.com/articles/bharat-sikka-a-life-s-work
Menezes, Vivek. “A famous fashion photographer turns his lens on Kashmir and finds profound pain”. Scroll.in, May 20, 2017.https://scroll.in/magazine/838036/a-famous-fashion-photographer-turns-his-lens-on-kashmir-and-finds-profound-pain
Nair, Uma. “Bharat Sikka’s magnum opus ‘The Sapper’, is on show at Nature Morte’s Viewing Room”. Architectural Digest India, July 08, 2020.https://www.architecturaldigest.in/content/delhi-bharat-sikka-the-sapper-at-nature-morte-viewing-room-movie-architecture/
Saffron Art. “Bharat Sikka”. Accessed May 04, 2021.https://www.saffronart.com/auctions/PostWork.aspx?l=27642