David Shillingford Paynter, RA, OBE (5 March 1900 – 7 June 1975), was an internationally renowned Sri Lankan painter.

Yet Paynter entered the Royal Academy by winning a five-year scholarship in the open competition with students, many of whom received formal instruction in European art schools.

By invitation he participated in four international exhibitions in the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburg in Rome, in New Delhi and at the World Fair held in New York.

In 1923 two of his best pictures The Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem and the Entombment were considered powerful and dramatic statements of deeply felt religious experiences.

The Trinity Chapel was a monumental work of architecture exemplifying the core vision that Paynter shared – a European world view rooted in the vernacular of the land.

His murals in the chapel, which comprise 'Are Ye Able', 'Washing the Disciples' Feet', 'The Good Samaritan' and 'The Crucifixion', are Bible stories transferred to Ceylon people and scenery.

[2] By 1935, all the murals were complete, with the centrepiece being a massive depiction of The Crucifixion – Christ as a dark-skinned, clean-shaven native of the land, raised on his cross above the dusky gloom of a sullen swarm of mangroves – the transformation was total; a symbol of Christian faith expressed to perfection in Lankan idiom; it has arguably never been as beautifully expressed since.

When an exhibition of contemporary Christian art from all countries was held in Rome in 1951 to commemorate the Holy Year celebrations, Pope Pius XII is said to have asked for Paynter's work.