Darcy Padilla is an associate professor of art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a member photographer of Agence VU' in Paris. Known for her narrative photography, Padilla focuses on long-term projects that explore themes of struggle and the trans-generational effects of socio-economic issues.
In 1991, after completing internships at newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, Padilla chose to pursue her own documentary work. In one of her early projects, she spent two years photographing incarcerated people with HIV/AIDS in a prison isolation ward. This project bolstered Padilla’s commitment to her life's work. AIDS and its consequences became central to Padilla's focus when she spent six years documenting residents of transient hotels in one of San Francisco's poorest neighbourhoods.
Her acclaimed monograph, Family Love, developed from her urban poverty project during the 1990s, when she met 19-year-old Julie Baird, a new mother living with HIV/AIDS. Padilla photographed Julie and her family for over two decades, presenting an intimate portrayal of social issues through one person’s life.
Padilla's work has been exhibited internationally, with solo exhibitions at Cortona On The Move (Italy), DOCfield Festival (Spain), Festival Nicéphore (France), and Visa pour l’Image (France). Her photographs are held in collections at the Chazen Museum, the Soros Foundation, and the Banco Sabadell Art Collection.
Padilla’s honours include a Guggenheim Fellowship (1995), an Open Society Institute Individual Fellowship (1998), an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship (2015), three World Press Photo Awards (including the inaugural Long-Term Projects Award in 2015), and the 30th W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography.
