“I see the need for the artist to help shape what society chooses to think about - and act on. What is needed then is art that responds creatively to the destruction that is before us"
Chandraguptha Thenuwara is one of the senior figures in contemporary Sri Lankan art. His work has been exhibited internationally, from his native Sri Lanka to Australia, Asia, and Europe, with notable permanent installations in Colombo and Japan. Thenuwara is the director of the Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts in Colombo, a not-for-profit art school which he founded in 1993 as an independent alternative to state-run art institutions, with the aim of teaching young and marginalized artists the basic tenets of fine art practice under the instruction of practicing artists. He has also participated in several international artist�s camps and workshops in Southeast Asia, and was artist in residence at John Moore�s University in 2002. As an artist, he is renowned primarily for his concept of �Barrelism� that crosses into painting, drawings, prints, sculptures, maps, writing 2 and installations.
Thenuwara�s concept of Barrelism is an idea that he developed in response to the camouflaged barricades that were erected across the urban landscape during the periods of violent ethnic tension in Sri Lanka. These were formed of barrels strategically placed by the military to form identity checkpoints and to restrict movement in the name of safeguarding the public. These �barrelscapes�, which have become an iconic feature in the country operate as a leitmotif throughout Thenuwara�s practise.
"By forcing people to look at what confronts them - the evidence of the inhumanity that human beings are capable of - artists force people to look at themselves"
With the escalation of violence in Sri Lanka, Barrelism developed when Thenuwara first started painting camouflage and barrels on canvas, moving on eventually to use barrels as an actual �canvas� or support. Under the British, barrels or oil drums, were used in the construction of new roads. Thenuwara�s work reflects on the appropriation of an object once associated with �construction� to its being redeployed within a context of ethnic and civil �destruction�. His use of �camouflage� plays and probes with the way pattern is used to disguise an object by making it disappear into the surrounding environment. What lurks within the interlocking surface of shapes, forms and colours? Are we always aware, as an individual, community or a nation, of what others seek to hide from view? Thenuwara�s work asks these simple questions as an acknowledgement perhaps of the fact that while human nature is capable of committing vile crimes it is equally capable of hiding them.
Thenuwara�s ongoing Barrelism series represents a powerful social critique of the war and is,a testament to the power of how an art practise that is socially constructed can also be socially constructive, if only as a pattern on a surface, that belies more sinister realities
Education
2006 M. Phil, Postgraduate Institute of Archeology, University of Kelaniya, Colombo,Sri Lanka
1992 MFA with Honours, Moscow State Art Institute named after Surikov, Moscow, Russia
1981 BFA, Institute of Aesthetic Studies, University of Kelaniya, Colombo, Sri Lanka
