kiran reilly-gill (he/they) is a textile artist and writer of malaysian and canadian descent, currently based between tkaronto and kuala lumpur. born in malaysia to an irish-canadian mother and a punjabi sikh father, their life has been shaped by movement between two continents and multiple languages and cultures. their work investigates the intersections of grief, love, and memory through the lens of ancestral histories and cultural complexity. they work with land-based pre-industrial textile practices—natural dyes, weaving, spinning, and stitching—as acts of reclamation, mourning, and remembrance.

their research focuses on the history of natural dyes and pigments, with particular interests in ethnobotany, craft theory, the history of imperialism and colonialism, sustainability, and archaeology. they are particularly interested in the connection between ethnobotany and material culture - specifically how the relationship between humans and plants shapes the textiles created by a society, both in historical and contemporary contexts.

they study plants and soil for pigment and dye creation, as part of a lifelong body of work based on the idea of colour as a living thing that is a collaboration between artist, community, and land. in this context, colour is something that is specific to a place and time, something that shifts and changes across time, and also something that does not have to be created using methodologies that harm living beings and the environment.

kiran has attended artist residencies in canada, iceland, malaysia, and indonesia, and is a two-time canada council for the arts grant recipient. they attended the bfa program in material art and design at ocadu.