Navin Thomas (b.1974) is a sculptor and sound artist, working predominantly with mixed media and found materials. He was educated in cinematography and graphic design, and now experiments with acoustics, integrating sounds of ecology and built architecture. Steering away from activism, his approach to art-making involves a reinterpretation of the traditional notions of the natural world and its ever changing landscapes.

The artist explains “earlier as part of my practice I liked to observe what a city discarded and try make more sense of it through my work which lead me to the idea of acoustic ecology and its relationship in built architecture and the way it constantly moves away and re-represents itself from the old formal ways of the landscape as a stage.”

Navin Thomas’s works have had numerous group exhibitions in prestigious institutions such as the 10th Anniversary Show at Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, curated by Akansha Rastogi and Roobina Karode, New Delhi (2020); Flight of the fabricator, curated by Beate Engle, Maximillan Forum, Munich, Germany (2017); Bright Noise, curated by Girish Shane, Lalit Kala Akademi (2014) and Generation in Transition, curated by Magda Kardasz, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2011). Additionally, Navin’s work has been a part of Whorled Explorations, curated by Jitish Kallat, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi (2014), and Art Walk Water, curated by Gayatri Sinha, EuropaliaIndia, Liege (2013–14).

Navin Thomas is the recipient of a grant from the India Foundation for the Arts for his extended art practice towards a book on salvaged photo negatives (2013), The Skoda Prize for Contemporary Art (2012), and a grant from Sarai (CSDS) to make an audio map of busking performances at popular city railway stations (2003).

Navin Thomas

Study of daylight in phases, 2024