Dhananjay Singh

Dhananjay Singh is an Indian sculptor, born in 1977 in Hajipur, Bihar, and based in New Delhi. He builds trees and human figures out of wire, mostly stainless steel with copper and bronze, coiling and binding strand over strand until hard industrial metal looks grown rather than made.

He trained in sculpture at Banaras Hindu University (BFA, 1999) and M.S. University, Baroda (MFA, 2002), and later taught for a short time as visiting faculty at NIFT Gandhinagar. In 2006 a Commonwealth Foundation placement took him to Melbourne as sculptor-in-residence at Monash University’s Faculty of Art and Design. Contact there with bronze and industrial metals pushed his wire work further, and that year the faculty’s Greenhouse Gallery gave him his debut solo show.

Almost everything he makes returns to the tree. Since childhood he has thought of plants as a double of himself, and in his sculptures a head may sprout a canopy or a face may settle into a trunk, so that growth and decay appear in a single form. Laid strand over strand, each surface builds into a fine texture that can suggest bark, sinew or skin, and shows the slow hours that went into it. He also draws and paints in watercolour, building figures from fine, branching marks much like his wire.

“The tree of life is my source of inspiration. They are like mirrors to introspect.”

Dhananjay Singh

His honours include the Gold Medal of Banaras Hindu University (2000), the National Award of the Lalit Kala Akademi (2002), the INLAKS Fine Art Award (2005) and the Commonwealth Arts and Crafts Award, London (2005). In 2026 two of his trees went on permanent public view in Hyderabad: The Tree at Novotel Hyderabad, and The Tree – 4, unveiled at Park Hyatt Hyderabad in July. In September 2026 Sculpted India showed his work at Design Democracy 2026 in Hyderabad.