Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran

I am Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, a Sri Lankan-born contemporary artist and lecturer whose practice engages critically with global histories and languages of figurative representation. My work is informed by South Asian visual traditions and material culture, with a particular focus on the intersections of idolatry, monumentality, gender, race, and religion. While I am widely recognised for my experimental and often irreverent approach to ceramic media, my practice extends across a diverse material vocabulary including bronze, painting, and printmaking. My artworks have been exhibited in major institutions, festivals, and public spaces, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Dhaka Art Summit, The Sharjah Art Foundation, The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, the Dark Mofo festival and many others. I have also worked with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in various presenter roles, contributing to cultural programming that intersects with contemporary art, identity, and social politics. I also regularly sit on assessment, prize and consultancy panels within my industry and also sit as a director on the board of Artspace, Sydney. My research interests lie in contemporary art and sculpture, queer and gender theory, South Asian art histories, and diasporic visual cultures. These areas underpin both my studio practice and broader contributions to discourse on materiality, representation, and identity in global contemporary art. I am particularly invested in expanding narratives around non-Western figurative traditions and their relationship to contemporary aesthetics and critical theory. In recognition of my contributions to the field, I was awarded a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship in 2019 for outstanding artistic talent and professional courage. That same year, I exhibited in the largest historical survey of LGBTQ Asian Art at the Bangkok Art and Cultural Centre. My first major monograph, RAMESH—a 368-page volume published by Thames & Hudson—was released internationally in 2022. My large-scale installation Avatar Towers, comprising 70 ceramic and bronze figures, was acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales following its presentation in the gallery’s historic vestibule. My work is also held in the numerous public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, The National Gallery of Victoria, The Kiran Nadar Museum of Fine Arts, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, the Ian Potter Museum of Art, and the Shepparton Art Museum. I am represented by Sullivan + Strumpf (Sydney/Singapore) and Jhaveri Contemporary (Mumbai). www.ramesh-nithiyendran.com contemporary art, ceramic, sculpture, painting, expanded painting, south asia, queer studies, gender and politics