Phoenix Art Museum has received a $5 million gift from the Arizona philanthropist Sukumar Nagendran to expand its Asian art galleries and deepen its commitment to Sri Lankan art. The donation will pay for a larger gallery footprint as well as new acquisitions, scholarly research and public programmes devoted to the region. The expansion will grow the museum's Art of Asia galleries from roughly 6,000 to 10,000 square feet through the renovation and repurposing of existing space. At its centre will be a new 2,000-square-foot Nagendran Gallery for the Art of Sri Lanka and South Asia, named in honour of the donor. More than 4,000 works in the museum's collection of over 21,000 pieces come from artists who live in, work in or originate from Asia, making it one of the foremost American institutions for Asian art. Nagendran, a physician and biotechnology executive who heads research and development at Taysha Gene Therapies, was introduced to the museum about a decade ago by collectors Coleene and Barry Fernando. The Fernandos had already played a major role in building its South Asian holdings, donating more than 130 works plus related photographs and loans, and helping to realise exhibitions including Guardian of the Flame: Art of Sri Lanka in 2003 and Legacy of Ceylon in 2021. In November the museum will inaugurate the new gallery with Pala Pothupitiye: Mapping a Sri Lankan Consciousness, curated by Tushara Bindu Gude. Pothupitiye's sculptures, assemblages, paintings and modified colonial maps explore the spaces between castes, the spiritual and secular worlds, and the social and political effects of successive Portuguese, Dutch and British occupations. His work will hang alongside historical Sri Lankan pieces from the collection, including illustrated palm-leaf manuscripts, Buddhist sculptures and mid-20th-century photographs by Quintus Fernando documenting archaeological sites and dancers.