Toby De Silva

Toby de Silva is a contemporary British artist who creates large scale photographs that investigate the interplay between perceived reality and the uncanny.

Inspired by artists and writers who draw predominantly on the imagination de Silva constructs images that question our relationship with mortality and fantasy. His work has evolved from documenting the extraordinary to reconstructing it and always starts with a compulsion to explore something mysterious. Subjects have included locations associated with hauntings, sites of unsolved murders and houses that appeared in classic horror movies. His first major work was ‘The Perfect Place to Die’ a two year survey of Japan’s infamous Aokigahara ‘suicide forest’.

More recently de Silva has focussed on re-purposing the landscape to suggest alternate realism, often inserting artificial elements or staging events that feature fictitious narratives meticulously assembled to create fantasies invoking mystery and tension.

Currently based in Asia, de Silva studied at Falmouth University followed by an MA in Photographic Studies at the University of Westminster.

Falmouth College of Arts - Photography
University of Westminster - MA Photography

2011 The Possessed, Charlie Smith Gallery, London
2011 Format Festival, Derby
2011 The Witching Hour 2, The PM Gallery, London
2010 The Witching Hour, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
2010 Association of Photographers Gallery, London
2009 Vision 2009, BJP International Photography Award, London
2009 Association of Photographers Gallery, London
2009 Hungry, Wolverhampton Art Gallery

AWARDS

2011 Arts Council funding for The Perfect Place to Die
2009 Winner, Rhubarb-Rhubarb Bursary
2009 Finalist, The Guardian/Royal Photographic Society Joan Wakelin Award
2009 Honorable mention, Photography.book.now
2009 Shortlisted, BJP International Photography Award