Tamruja Dharmasaroja

Tamruja Dharmasaroja is one of those people who seems to move easily between very different worlds. We first connected through Facebook and met a few times before she eventually invited me to her apartment near Kasetsart for a portrait.

Tamruja is a writer, simultaneous interpreter, lecturer and artist. She originally studied art and design at Central Saint Martins, later trained in film production, and has worked across everything from international organisations and film sets to poetry and visual art. Her writing and creative work often touch on social and environmental issues, and in 2025 she was shortlisted for the S.E.A. Write Award for poetry.

Her interpreting work can take her into conferences, meetings and events for days at a time, but between jobs she returns to painting. When I visited her apartment, canvases and works in progress shared the space with an impressive collection of plushies and art toys. She was preparing for another exhibition at the time, painting whenever her schedule allowed.