Nandini Valli Muthiah was born in Chennai, India in 1976. She earned a BA in English Literature from Madras University in 1998, followed by an MA in French Translation and Interpretation from Pondicherry University in 2000. Nandini then attended the Arts Institute at Bournemouth, UK (now Arts University Bournemouth) and graduated in 2005 with a BA in Photography. She lives and works in Chennai.
Nandini’s first major collection, The Definitive Reincarnate (2006), explores the concept of incarnated divinity through the figure of the Hindu deity Vishnu. The photographs have rich saturated colours and show Vishnu in modern settings, such as sitting on a bed looking forlorn. According to Nandini, the idea of The Definitive Reincarnate is to ‘take Vishnu and sort of update him’.