Anil Thambai was born in 1980, in God's own country Kerala His art reflects his cultural background and experiences His supportive family encouraged him to pursue art as a career and introduced him to various artists and writers from a young age In order to kick start his artistic career he completed his Bachelor of Visual Arts in Painting from the College of Fine Arts Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala (2005) and Master of Visual Arts from M S University, Vadodara, Gujarat 2007 The influence of Trivandrum's school can be seen in his figurative works During his time in Baroda College, he saw the Mughal miniature paintings and Pithora paintings which inspired him to execute images in small format

His vast oeuvre includes works created utilising materials such as watercolours, drawings, video art, site-specific work, and oil paintings He grew up in a family of masons and naturally gravitated towards building something that constitutes the idea of architecture, a recurrent theme in his oeuvre In his architecture-inspired series of works, he tries to retrieve the collective labour which often gets lost in translation once the monuments are completed His other series include the "From Bombay to Thane" series inspired by the 'Train to Pakistan' novel by Khushwant Singh and the "I Thought it is Blood" series utilising black, white, and red colour with a semi-realism approach

Thambai has presented his works in numerous group shows such as Patterns of Intensity, at Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi; ‘Persistence of Memory’ in Akara Art Gallery Mumbai; 59th National Exhibition of Art at National Lalit Kala Academy New Delhi, India; Double consciousness' video projected in Samrya International Media Art Fest South Korea, among others He continues to work and lives in Baroda