Aiminath Sulthana  ·  Dhona  ·  London

20 years in digital.
12 years in light.
One studio.

Biography

Aiminath Sulthana, known as Dhona, is a Maldives-born, London-based visual artist, creative technologist, and director of Dhona Ltd. Her relationship with technology began in 2004 with 3D Max and AutoCAD in the Maldives. By 2006 she was working as a journalist for national television and radio — already operating across digital infrastructure at a time when most people in her field were not.

She discovered projection mapping in 2012, taught herself Quartz Composer and then Mad Mapper, and has spent the years since developing one of the most technically grounded immersive art practices in the UK. Fluent in HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript and GLSL — and an early adopter of generative AI workflows across code, image and language models — she approaches every tool with the literacy of someone who understands what she is asking it to do. The difference between using AI well and using it blindly is knowing what you're asking for.

Her own works have been presented at the Maldives National Art Gallery, Somerset House, Whitechapel Gallery, Phillips Hong Kong, HOFA Gallery Mayfair, Coastal Currents Festival, and the Geneva Mapping Festival. In 2025 she received the HOFA Digital Award in partnership with Phillips London Gallery. In 2026 her work Birds Blade was selected as a finalist at the Digital Art Awards in the Moving Image category and exhibited at Phillips Hong Kong — a crossover into the international fine art world entirely on her own terms and under full intellectual ownership.

In parallel, she spent a decade engineering demand generation infrastructure, API integrations, and MarTech architecture at enterprise scale — reporting directly to C-suite within ventures backed by Vista Equity Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Telefonica and YFM Equity Partners, across Western Europe, North America and APJ. That rigour — the systems thinking, the precision, the ability to build things that actually work at scale — lives in everything she makes now. It is not separate from the art. It is the reason the art works.

Origin & Timeline
2026
Birds Blade — Digital Art Awards finalist, Moving Image. Exhibited at Phillips Hong Kong.
2025
Solo exhibition Ali — Maldives National Art Gallery. HOFA Digital Award, Phillips London Mayfair.
2024
HOFA commissions — projection mapping for Sougwen Chung, Random International, Joseph Klibansky. Geneva Mapping Festival. Coastal Currents Festival.
2023
Somerset House. Whitechapel Gallery. HOFA Gallery relationship begins. Adidas FORE.
2021
AV Experience Podcast, Episode 01. The artistic practice accelerates publicly.
2020
Optoma partnership. Creative direction, QuadLED controls, videography. 41K+ content views.
2018–23
Enterprise scale. Demand generation, API engineering and MarTech architecture within Vista Equity Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Telefonica and YFM-backed ventures. C-suite reporting throughout.
2017
Founds Dhona Ltd. Walt Disney Company — Account & Campaign Manager, Global Communications Team, Hammersmith.
2015
London. Stanford CS101. Enterprise digital career begins. HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript.
2012
Discovers projection mapping. Quartz Composer, then Mad Mapper. The practice that defines everything begins.
2009
UNDP Maldives. Project Assistant. UNESCO tsunami early warning systems training.
2006
Journalist. Haveeru Online and national broadcasting. Reuters Foundation training. Digital from day one.
2004
3D Max & AutoCAD. Maldives. The visual computing instinct begins.
In Her Words

"My practice is driven by the translation of internal visions into the physical realm — specifically the intersection of biological grace and computational logic."

For years I have been captivated by a recurring question: what does it mean for something to be simultaneously present and absent? Light answers that question better than any other medium. It can define a space and dissolve it in the same breath. My work does not decorate spaces — it reframes them. I use custom shaders, spatial mapping systems, and live audio-reactive programming not as tools, but as a language. Every installation is a sentence I have been trying to say since I first pointed a projector at a wall in 2012 and watched the room change.

Recognition
Digital Art Awards FinalistMoving Image · Birds Blade · 2026
HOFA Digital AwardPhillips London Mayfair · 2025
AV Experience Podcast — Ep. 01Optoma · 2021
Light Collective FeatureWomen in Lighting · 2023
Maldives IndependentSolo Exhibition Ali · 2025
Clients
Walt Disney CompanyGlobal Communications · London
HOFA GalleryTechnical Artist · ongoing
Adidas / FOREProjection Mapping · London
OptomaCreative Direction · B2B
Making Numbers LtdZero-emission projection campaign
Enterprise venturesVista · Salesforce · Telefonica · YFM backed
Venues
Phillips Hong KongBirds Blade · Digital Art Awards · 2026
Maldives National Art GallerySolo Exhibition Ali · 2025
Phillips London MayfairLaser Installation · HOFA Digital Awards · 2025
HOFA Gallery MayfairPavement projections · seasonal
Somerset HouseLondon · 2023
Whitechapel GalleryLondon · 2023
Fonderie Kugler, GenevaMapping Festival · 2024
Press & Recognition
Optoma · AV Experience Podcast · 2021
Counted among the most influential figures in the world of AV, technology and entertainment.
Episode 01 — self-taught projection mapping artist
Light Collective · 2023
Spectacularly beautiful and hypnotically serene — alternative worlds worth returning to.
Women in Lighting feature
Maldives Independent · 2025
When the gallery went dark, the light began to dance.
Solo exhibition Ali · Maldives National Art Gallery
Digital Art Awards · 2026
Finalist in the Moving Image category alongside internationally established artists.
Birds Blade · Phillips Hong Kong · 2026
Craft & Technology
Projection Mapping Laser Mapping GLSL Shaders WebGL Mad Mapper Blender Quartz Composer Live AV Programming Audio Reactive Visuals Set Design Creative Direction HTML · CSS · PHP · JS Generative AI Workflows API Engineering MarTech Architecture Google Cloud · Firebase
Available for commissions,
collaborations & residencies.
Get in Touch