ABOUT

Dhama Thanigasapapathy gained a first-class BA (Hons) Painting from the Open College of the Arts in 2023, also winning the prestigious 2023 Freelands Painting Prize.

She is a London based British artist whose work is informed by her interest in science, science fiction, psychology, futurism and her life-long fascination with the awesome power and chaotic beauty of extreme climatic phenomena. Her perspective is unusually enriched by a prior career in IT Consultancy and telecommunications which involved analysis of the impacts of artificial intelligence, ubiquitous connectivity and other revolutionary technologies.

Dhama uses painting to relate to the changing environment, allowing the flows, drips and chemical interactions of paint to echo natural processes. She spends many hours drawing, painting and photographing elements of the natural environment such as water, geological formations and weather effects. She is drawn to the way the climate transforms, dissolves and erases all things over deep time, highlighting the ephemeral nature of our own lives.

The semi-figurative speculative landscape paintings are imaginative renderings of future possibilities based on a complex layering of reality, imagination, multiple overlapping memories, cultural stories and emotional drivers including unease and nostalgia. She believes that showing this phenomenon through her expressive and visually compelling artwork will lead viewers to consider the fate of the natural environment.

Prizes

2023 Freelands Painting Prize Winner 2023

The Freelands Painting Prize celebrates outstanding painting practice at undergraduate level, culminating in an exhibition at the Freelands Foundation gallery.

Exhibitions

2025 Around our Manor-views of urban life, Clocktower Cafe Hanwell, Clocktower Art Collective Exhibition from 10th May to Jul 2025

2025 Nature’s Gifts, Clocktower Cafe Hanwell, Clocktower Art Collective Exhibition from 11th Mar to 9th May 2025

2025 Bobo Social Art Exhibition, Group Exhibition on 5th Mar 2025

2024 Autumn Exhibition, Open Ealing, Group Exhibition from 28th Oct to 1st Nov 2025

2024 Curious Space: Transitions in Landscape, Willesden Gallery, Group Exhibition from 9 Jul 2024 to 20 Jul 2024

2024 To and Fro, Bath Artist’s Studios. The Old Malthouse, Group Exhibition from 25 May 2024 to 31 May 2024

2024 Turning Worlds, Prosaic Projects Gallery, Sheffield, Group Exhibition from 26 Apr 2024 to 10 May 2024

2023 ESOP Winter Show, Group Online Exhibition from 8 Dec 2023 to 10 Jan 2024

2023 BABBLE, Group Exhibition at the Ilkeston Contemporary Arts (ILKON) from 10 Nov to 6 Dec 2023

2023 Freelands 2023 Painting Prizewinners Exhibition at the Freelands Gallery Space in London from 6 Oct to 18 Nov 2023

2023 Menacing Beauty, Two-person Online Exhibition from 1 May to 31 Dec 2023

2023 Something Lost, Solo Exhibition at The Questors Theatre from 12 to 31 Jan 2023

Talks and Publications

2025 Published in Encounters: Edge Zine Magazine Issue 14 2025

2024 Artist Interview with NW Londoner newspaper, 11th July 2024

2023 Published in a-n Artists Information Company Degree Shows Guide 2023

2022 Artist’s Talk for Open College of the Arts (OCA) Art/Scientific Collective

2022 Thames Rising, Short Film

2020 Flood & Bottom of the Ocean included in OCA Art and Ecology Painting and Drawing Group Finissage Magazine

2019 Reminiscing with Light II selected for inclusion in Interval 1 Online Magazine, November 2019

Education and Awards

2023 BA 1st Class (Hons) Painting, Open College of the Arts (accredited by the University for the Creative Arts)

MA (Hons) Electrical and Information Sciences, University of Cambridge

MSc Computation, UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology)