The Stables Artist Residency in tropical Sri Lanka

There are places in this world that polish you down to a polite little pebble. And then there are places that don’t give a damn who you were before you walked in.

The Stables is the second kind.

A crooked little miracle on the south coast of tropical Sri Lanka, where the sun hits you like a warm slap, the ocean keeps roaring its drunken truths, and the nights stretch long enough for you to finally hear yourself think. It’s the kind of place where art doesn’t just happen — it leaks out of you, whether you want it to or not.

They’ve started an artist residency here. Of course they did. A place like this was always going to demand something back.

Apply now and become part of the hotel, it's history and it's heart.

You show up with your half‑finished ideas, your notebooks full of lies, your camera that’s seen too much, your brushes that haven’t touched a canvas in months. You show up tired, hopeful, hungover on life or something cheaper. And The Stables gives you a room, a desk, a bit of quiet, a bit of chaos to thrive, and a front‑row seat to the kind of days that shake the dust off your bones.

In return, you leave a piece of yourself behind. A poem. A painting. A photograph. A story. Something honest. Something with teeth.

Get inspired from what's around you and turn it into something new and inspiring.

This isn’t one of those sterile, white‑gloved residencies where everyone whispers about “the process” and drinks wine that tastes like regret. No. This is a place where the surf rattles your windows at night, where the air smells like salt and ambition, where the people are real and the conversations don’t need to be clever to matter.

You work. You sweat. You make something that didn’t exist before. And maybe — if the gods are in a good mood — you walk away a little more alive than when you arrived.

If you’ve got a project clawing at your ribs, go take a look at the residency page. It’s all there:

https://www.the-stables-hotel.com/art

Apply if you’re brave enough. Or desperate enough. Or just tired of pretending you don’t care about the thing you were born to make.

The Stables won’t fix your life. But it might just give you the space to create something that does.

Use the walls as your canvas and make revive the dead and grey concrete.