Arunan Dharmalingam

@arunand_dot_com | www.arunand.com

Arunan Dharmalingam is an artist based in Sydney living with Autism. As a highly visually-oriented person with limited verbal communication, Art is one of the ways Arunan chooses to creatively express his thoughts, feelings and interests to his community.

Drawing has been a long-term focus for Arunan, and animals have often been the favoured subject matter - a fondness he has developed from his childhood and experiences of farms and zoos.

For over a decade Arunan has enjoyed creating his animal illustrations using a Wacom Cintiq tablet with Adobe Photoshop. This digital technology has aided Arunan to develop his unique drawing style with consistency and simplicity in line work and colour selection.

In recent years, Arunan has been composing his energetic depictions of farm scenes, which he lovingly draws and re-draws with careful detail, to tell a story. Usually starting with a grey horse and rhino at the centre, the farm scenes span outwards, filling the coloured space with a whole range of animal activity,  jostling and interacting together.

Arunan has had multiple solo exhibitions with Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation (SCHF) Randwick between 2015-2024 and has been a member of Studio ARTES from 2008-2019. In recent years Arunan has been crafting his digital illustration and clay animals from his home studio, supported by Little Umbrella Collective.