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Born and raised in Madras, South India, Pretika delved into explorations of various art forms including painting, dance and poetry.
She started her independent photographic practice in 2010, and in 2014 moved to Bangalore to join Myntra.com as the senior photographer in marketing.
By 2016, she moved to Bombay to start her own company that produces and executes fashion shoots for clients.
Inspired by cinema, street life and childhood stories, Pretika captures the dramatic in the everyday for her characters. Her work encompasses a
fine-art painterly aesthetic in mise-en-scène with undertones of dark humor; that intrinsically weaves boldness and the surreal into the fabric of the post
colonial cultural identity.
She continues to develop her own artistic style in Goa, with new dimensions in performance and theatre, backed by her sensibilities in her lens based practice.
She is a photography educator at Istituto Marangoni Mumbai, where teaches editorial fashion photography and guides her students on their final year projects.
She conducts fashion photography workshops at the Light And Life Academy in Ooty, where she is an alumni.
She is a regular contributor to Vogue Italia since being chosen in Condenast's talent hunt in Mumbai in 2019, and has been featured, commissioned and
published in major publications including iD, Fucking Young, Vogue India, Harpers Bazaar, Elle, Verve, Grazia, Platform, Say Zine and Architectural Digest.
In 2022, she was part of a residency funded by Vogue Italia. She was also selected for a 10 day darkroom workshop in Delhi conducted by Srinivas Kuruganti ,
funded by the Murthy Nayak Foundation. She was selected for and attended the Angkor Wat Photo Workshop in January 2024 at Siem Reap.
She was interviewed & published in Kidz Paris 2022 - an art book that showcased 50 young creatives across the globe. In 2023 she was featured in Proud South, a
global index by Dutch trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort on trends in fashion and culture in the Southern Hemisphere.
Awards:
Pretika won the PhMuseum Women Photographers Grant as well as the Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Grant for Photography 2023 for her ongoing project titled ‘Dhon’ (Two).
Exhibitions:
A part of the project Dhon was showcased in a group exhibition at the Goa Open Arts in February 2024.
Her series ‘Archetypes of Freedom’ was showcased at the Photo Vogue Festival in 2023.
Her work for Gundi Studios was exhibited at Method Gallery, Mumbai, in 2020.
Pretika was part of a group show at the Chennai Photo Biennale in 2013.
She started her independent photographic practice in 2010, and in 2014 moved to Bangalore to join Myntra.com as the senior photographer in marketing.
By 2016, she moved to Bombay to start her own company that produces and executes fashion shoots for clients.
Inspired by cinema, street life and childhood stories, Pretika captures the dramatic in the everyday for her characters. Her work encompasses a
fine-art painterly aesthetic in mise-en-scène with undertones of dark humor; that intrinsically weaves boldness and the surreal into the fabric of the post
colonial cultural identity.
She continues to develop her own artistic style in Goa, with new dimensions in performance and theatre, backed by her sensibilities in her lens based practice.
She is a photography educator at Istituto Marangoni Mumbai, where teaches editorial fashion photography and guides her students on their final year projects.
She conducts fashion photography workshops at the Light And Life Academy in Ooty, where she is an alumni.
She is a regular contributor to Vogue Italia since being chosen in Condenast's talent hunt in Mumbai in 2019, and has been featured, commissioned and
published in major publications including iD, Fucking Young, Vogue India, Harpers Bazaar, Elle, Verve, Grazia, Platform, Say Zine and Architectural Digest.
In 2022, she was part of a residency funded by Vogue Italia. She was also selected for a 10 day darkroom workshop in Delhi conducted by Srinivas Kuruganti ,
funded by the Murthy Nayak Foundation. She was selected for and attended the Angkor Wat Photo Workshop in January 2024 at Siem Reap.
She was interviewed & published in Kidz Paris 2022 - an art book that showcased 50 young creatives across the globe. In 2023 she was featured in Proud South, a
global index by Dutch trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort on trends in fashion and culture in the Southern Hemisphere.
Awards:
Pretika won the PhMuseum Women Photographers Grant as well as the Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Grant for Photography 2023 for her ongoing project titled ‘Dhon’ (Two).
Exhibitions:
A part of the project Dhon was showcased in a group exhibition at the Goa Open Arts in February 2024.
Her series ‘Archetypes of Freedom’ was showcased at the Photo Vogue Festival in 2023.
Her work for Gundi Studios was exhibited at Method Gallery, Mumbai, in 2020.
Pretika was part of a group show at the Chennai Photo Biennale in 2013.