“You have to make it inside of yourself wherever you are.”
~Ernest Hemmingway, Islands in the Stream.
Islands are often imagined as remote places, environments defined by their isolation. In many ways, this is true. Islands can be home to plant and animal species that exist nowhere else, uniquely adapted to the specific ecosystems of a single location. But for humans, the history of islands is far less straightforward. Throughout history, people have migrated along coastlines, sometimes venturing further into the open sea. Many islands became crossroads, stopping points for traders, empires, and explorers, connecting them to the wider world. Sri Lanka, the Dominican Republic, and the coastal islands of Thailand stand as testaments to that complex history. In each, the interplay between connection and isolation has profoundly shaped culture, faith, language, and identity. Artwork from these nations often reflects this same interplay between rootedness and exchange. Artists may draw upon the spiritual traditions, histories, and social structures of their homelands, yet they do not create in isolation. They participate in a wider international artistic conversation, shaped by global movements, cross-cultural influence, and shared human concerns. In this way, these artists mirror the islands themselves, carrying unique perspectives, traditions, and beliefs while remaining connected to the wider world.
Though separated by oceans and distinct histories, the artists and communities of Sri Lanka, Thailand, and the Dominican Republic are connected in ways that may not be immediately apparent. One of the most striking of these shared foundations is the importance of faith and religion. In 2009, Gallup conducted a poll in virtually every country asking residents in each nation, “Is religion an important part of your daily life?” One might assume, as I did, that countries like Saudi Arabia or Israel might top the list, but neither of them managed to crack the top 30. However, Thailand ranked 10th highest, with 97% of respondents answering “Yes,” and Sri Lanka ranked 6th highest, with an astounding 99% of respondents saying that religion is an important part of their daily life. While the Americas in general rank a bit lower on this scale, the Dominican Republic was the 5th-highest in the Western Hemisphere, with respondents answering yes at 87%, significantly higher than in the United States at 65%.
Though these countries nearly universally agree on the importance of religion, what religion actually looks like in each nation varies widely. In the Dominican Republic, Catholicism and other Christian groups play the most visible role in public and private life. Yet Dominican religious expression is not purely European in origin. Indigenous Taíno cosmology and African spiritual traditions, carried to the island through the transatlantic slave trade, have left enduring traces in folklore, herbal medicine, and certain popular devotional practices.
In both Sri Lanka and Thailand, Theravada Buddhism is the predominant religion, yet even this shared foundation manifests differently in each country. In Thailand, visible traces of religious history remain embedded in daily life. Spirit houses reflect older animist cosmologies of Tai-speaking peoples, while Hindu iconography, transmitted through centuries of Indian Ocean trade and especially through the political and religious influence of the Khmer Empire, appears alongside elaborate Buddhist temples. Islam also holds significant historical and contemporary importance in southern Thailand, particularly in Malay-influenced regions along the Andaman coast and near the Malaysian border, reflecting centuries of maritime trade connections.
While distinct devotional and local practices certainly exist, Sri Lankan Buddhism has often emphasized sacred texts and the preservation of monastic traditions as central to its religious identity. The public religious landscape, however, is less clearly influenced by other traditions than in Thailand. At the same time, Sri Lanka is home to significant Muslim, Hindu, and Christian communities, whose presence reflects centuries of Indian Ocean trade, South Indian migration, and European colonial influence. Religion there therefore reflects not only the enduring influence of Buddhism, but also centuries of trade, migration, and settlement. Celebrated and nationally recognized artists from Sri Lanka, Thailand, and the Dominican Republic often reflect these deeply rooted religious traditions.
Dominican Republic: Jaime Colson
In the Dominican Republic, Catholicism and Christianity have long shaped public life, education, and social values. Jaime Colson engaged directly with Christian iconography in several works, including reinterpretations of the Crucifixion. Yet his treatment of these subjects departed from academic religious painting. Having studied in Europe and been influenced by modernism, Colson approached biblical themes through abstract works and symbolism.
Sri Lanka: George Keyt
In Sri Lanka, religion remains central to cultural life, expressed through a landscape shaped by Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. George Keyt, though born into a Burgher (Eurasian Christian) community, became deeply influenced by Buddhist and Hindu philosophy. Much of his work draws from Hindu epics such as the Ramayana. Though influenced by European modernism in technique, Keyt’s subject matter remained connected to the religious traditions of South Asia.
Thailand: Thawan Duchanee
In Thailand, the influence of Buddhism on artistic expression can be seen not only in temple architecture but also in modern painting. Thawan Duchanee drew deeply from Buddhist cosmology, particularly its meditations on karma, suffering, morality, and transcendence. His dramatic compositions, dominated by bold black forms and intense symbolism, combine spiritual struggle with elements of Buddhist theology. Though informed by modernist technique, the philosophical core of his work remained rooted in Theravada Buddhist thought.
While faith forms a shared cultural foundation, the histories of these nations reveal another powerful connection: each has long been shaped by international exchange. Though separated by vast distances, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and the Dominican Republic have never developed in isolation. Instead, they emerged at the intersection of trade routes, migration patterns, and shifting spheres of influence.
Along Thailand’s Andaman coast, the provinces of Phang Nga and Krabi were historically linked to wider Indian Ocean networks. The region fell within the cultural orbit of the Srivijaya maritime empire (centered in modern-day Sumatra), which connected Southeast Asia through Buddhist scholarship and trade from the 7th to the 13th centuries. Tamil inscriptions associated with South Indian trade networks have also been discovered in southern Thailand and date back to the 3rd century, suggesting early commercial and religious contact. Over centuries, Malay Muslim traders, sea nomad communities such as the Moken, Chinese migrants, and later Portuguese merchants contributed to the region’s multicultural identity. What appears today as distinctly Thai coastal culture is, in reality, the product of centuries of maritime exchange.
Sri Lanka’s history likewise reflects long global connections. Roman coins discovered on the island point to its participation in ancient trade between the Mediterranean and South Asia. Early Sinhala and Tamil communities shaped linguistic and religious traditions that remain central to national identity, while close interaction with South Indian kingdoms, including periods of Chola Empire rule, further embedded cross-cultural influence. Beginning in the 16th century, Portuguese, Dutch, and later British colonial administrations introduced new political structures, religious traditions, and social hierarchies. Even the island’s names reveal layers of exchange. “Serendip,” used in Persian and Arabic texts (also the root of the English word “serendipity”), derives from the Sanskrit Simhaladvipa and entered European languages through Islamic trade networks coined in the eighteenth century after a Persian tale set on the island. “Ceylon” emerged from Portuguese, Dutch, and British adaptations of earlier local names. Contemporary Sri Lankan society, encompassing Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Tamils, Indian Tamils, Moors, Burghers, Veddas, and families that continue to bear Portuguese surnames, reflects this long history of layered encounter rather than a single origin story.
Across the globe, the Dominican Republic tells a parallel story of global connection. The island of Hispaniola was home to Taíno communities long before European arrival. In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed there, initiating sustained contact between Europe and the Americas. The eastern portion of the island developed primarily under Spanish colonial rule, while the western region became the French colony of Saint-Domingue. Yet boundaries were not always rigid; French influence expanded at times into areas that are now part of the Dominican Republic, and shifting political control reflected the island’s contested history. The transatlantic slave trade forcibly brought African peoples to the Caribbean, profoundly reshaping its demographic and cultural landscape. During the 19th century, movements of free Black communities within the Atlantic world, including small numbers arriving from the United States, further contributed to this evolving society. Over time, Indigenous, African, and European influences blended to form the linguistic, religious, and artistic traditions that influence Dominican identity today.
Thailand: Chalermchai Kositpipat
If Thawan’s work reveals the philosophical depth of Thai Buddhism, Chalermchai Kositpipat illustrates Thailand’s ongoing connection with the wider world. Best known as the creator of Wat Rong Khun, the White Temple in Chiang Rai, Chalermchai reimagines traditional Buddhist art through an international and contemporary lens. While his paintings and sculptures draw from sacred Thai tradition, he also incorporates imagery drawn from global popular culture, modern technology, and international events. In doing so, Chalermchai acknowledges that Thai identity today exists within a globally connected reality.
Dominican Republic: Cándido Bidó
Across this long history of Indigenous presence, European colonization, African diaspora, and Atlantic migration, the work of Cándido Bidó offers a vivid artistic reflection of Dominican identity. His paintings, immediately recognizable by his use of color and stylized figures, frequently center on rural landscapes, maternal figures, and scenes of communal life. While modernist in technique, his imagery draws deeply from Afro-Caribbean communities and the historical blending of traditions that helped shape the Dominican Republic.
To speak of global awareness in relation to Sri Lanka, Thailand, and the Dominican Republic is not to flatten them into a single narrative of “connected islands,” nor to reduce their artists to representatives of religion, culture, or exchange alone. Each country possesses its own distinct history, cultural logic, and internal diversity. At the same time, they have never existed in isolation. For centuries, trade, migration, empire, and belief have moved across their shores, shaping societies in ways both visible and subtle. The influence of religion on artists may appear overt in one work and entirely absent in another; global interconnectedness may surface through explicit imagery in some cases but not in others. Understanding these places, therefore, requires attention to nuance rather than assumption. Their cultures are neither monolithic nor detached from the wider world. Instead, the artwork and traditions of these nations are as dynamic and distinctive as the islands they call home.
