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Chandraguptha Thenuwara Sri Lankan , b. 1960
BLINDS: Waterbody, 2021Acrylic on Canvas70 x 90 cm
27 1/2 x 35 3/8 inCopyright The ArtistPOACreated in the year following the year-long lockdown in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Thenuwara’s exhibition was a meditation out of the artist’s studio in his home. The effects...Created in the year following the year-long lockdown in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Thenuwara’s exhibition was a meditation out of the artist’s studio in his home. The effects on the artist of a year spent in and out of lockdown seeps through in the particularly intimate and vulnerable quality of his work.Through Thenuwara’s deft marriage of the figurative and the abstract, the painting merges the foreground and the background leaving the viewer confounded on whether the figures in the painting have become part of the abstraction or if they are merely concealed beneath it.
In BLINDS: Waterbody, two crimson water lilies peek through the blinds, a subtle nod to the artist's previous explorations of this flower as a symbol of national identity and purity. Through the metaphor of blinds that partially obscure the view, Thenuwara invites viewers to read between the lines, challenging their socio-political truths while hinting at a glimmer of hope.Exhibitions
Blinds | 2021
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