Christopher Kulendran Thomas’ paintings metabolise Sri Lanka’s colonial history, compressing mutliple art historical timelines onto a single canvas. He is an artist of Tamil descent, who spent his formative years in London, after his family left Sri Lanka during the escalating ethnic oppression there. Through immersive film installation, painting and sculpture, Kulendran Thomas’ practice explores lost histories, alternative possibilities and Sri Lanka’s colonial art history. He uses advanced technologies across multiple disciplines and often through fluid collaborations with architects, writers, technologists, designers, musicians and activists from around the world.

His work is part of important public and private collections including that of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), Delhi. Recent solo exhibitions of the artist’s work have been held at Experimenter, Colaba, Mumbai (2025); WIELS, Brussels (2024); Kunsthalle Zürich (2023); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2022); Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2022); Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2019); Institute for Modern Art, Brisbane (2019); Spike Island, Bristol (2019); and Tensta konsthall, Stockholm (2017). Kulendran Thomas’ work has been included in the 5th Timisoara Biennial (2023); the 2nd Front Triennial, Cleveland (2022); and the 7th Bi-City Biennale, Shenzhen (2017); as well as the 11th Gwangju Biennale; the 9th Berlin Biennale; and the 3rd Dhaka Art Summit (all 2016).