ABOUT

Dhama Thanigasapapathy 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.

She uses painting as a way 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. The semi-figurative speculative landscape paintings are imaginative renderings of future possibilities where extreme climatic forces transform, dissolve and erase constructs over time and space. The paintings are based on a complex layering of reality, imagination, multiple overlapping memories, cultural stories and emotional drivers including unease and nostalgia.

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

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

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 of the Creative Arts)

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

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