Shanaka Kulathunga moves between the disciplines of medicine and art with an uncommon clarity of purpose. Born in Sri Lanka in 1981 and trained as a medical doctor at the Colombo Medical Faculty, he approaches painting with the quiet introspection of someone attuned to the intimate realities of life, suffering, and resilience. This dual grounding, scientific and aesthetic, endows his practice with a depth of empathy and psychological precision that distinguishes his presence in contemporary figurative painting.

Rooted in portraiture and the human figure, Kulathunga’s compositions are shaped by a profound attentiveness to emotion and silence. His figures emerge from atmospheric fields, rendered with delicate tonal transitions and minimal distractions. The gaze of a sitter, the tension of a hand, or the subtle tilt of a shoulder speaks volumes, gestures that hold entire narratives in restraint. There is no theatricality, only a distilled stillness that allows the viewer to encounter the human spirit in its most reflective state.

His formal training at the Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts under the guidance of Dr. Chandraguptha Thenuwara provided a crucial early framework. Yet, Kulathunga’s style departs from his conceptual mentor’s emphasis on critique, gravitating instead toward a spiritualized minimalism. His subjects, often drawn from daily life, carry the dignity of lived experience, teachers, laborers, elders, children, each portrayed with a quiet reverence that dissolves the boundary between artist and subject. Themes of struggle, transcendence, and emotional continuity pervade his work. The physical figure becomes a vessel of interiority, each portrait a meditation on inner light and memory. There is a timelessness to his aesthetic that eschews spectacle in favor of presence, where figures seem to hover between visibility and silence.

Kulathunga’s evolving body of work has been met with recognition in Sri Lanka and abroad. In 2017, he received the professional category award at the ‘SPECULO’ Art Exhibition presented by Sri Lankan Airlines, and his portraiture was commended at the State Arts and Sculpture Festival the same year. His solo debut, which drew from encounters with real-life sitters, marked a turning point in the development of his distinctive voice. Internationally, he has represented Sri Lanka at exhibitions in Kyrgyzstan and China, where his work continues to contribute to global conversations around portraiture, identity, and the reflective possibilities of visual practice.