Cast the First Stone: Chandraguptha Thenuwara
Forthcoming exhibition
Overview
Saskia Fernando Gallery is pleased to present Chandraguptha Thenuwara’s annual memorial exhibition commemorating the events of Black July. ‘Cast the First Stone’ continues Thenuwara’s sustained engagement with Sri Lanka’s sociopolitical landscape, while underscoring the urgent need for accountability and meaningful political action. With an emphasis on gender-based violence, interrogates the hypocrisy of moral righteousness and the inadequacies of legislative frameworks that continue to perpetuate discrimination and systemic injustice.
Chandraguptha Thenuwara’s (b. 1960, Galle. Lives and works in Athurugiriya) interdisciplinary practice deals with the politics of memory and violence, extensively confronting the ‘glitch’ in Sri Lanka’s obsession with beautification, even at the expense of erasing its recent history. His wider body of work includes sculpture, painting, drawings, public monuments, lectures, and curatorial and collaborative projects, all of which are informed directly by his activism. Drawing from a repository of leitmotifs such as barrels, barricades, lotuses, guns, soldiers and stupas, Thenuwara’s artist-activist interventions are intertwined with the sociopolitical developments in Sri Lanka.
Thenuwara’s work has been featured in Art Dubai Modern, Dubai (2024); Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Delhi (2023); Ishara Art Foundation, Sharjah (2023); Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (2022); Frieze, London (2022); Personal Structures, European Cultural Centre, Venice (2022); and also at the landmark moving exhibition, Cities on the Move (1997 - 99) curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Hou Hanru.
His works belong in institutional collections at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, The Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan, Fukuoka and The Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane.
Chandraguptha Thenuwara’s (b. 1960, Galle. Lives and works in Athurugiriya) interdisciplinary practice deals with the politics of memory and violence, extensively confronting the ‘glitch’ in Sri Lanka’s obsession with beautification, even at the expense of erasing its recent history. His wider body of work includes sculpture, painting, drawings, public monuments, lectures, and curatorial and collaborative projects, all of which are informed directly by his activism. Drawing from a repository of leitmotifs such as barrels, barricades, lotuses, guns, soldiers and stupas, Thenuwara’s artist-activist interventions are intertwined with the sociopolitical developments in Sri Lanka.
Thenuwara’s work has been featured in Art Dubai Modern, Dubai (2024); Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Delhi (2023); Ishara Art Foundation, Sharjah (2023); Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (2022); Frieze, London (2022); Personal Structures, European Cultural Centre, Venice (2022); and also at the landmark moving exhibition, Cities on the Move (1997 - 99) curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Hou Hanru.
His works belong in institutional collections at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, The Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan, Fukuoka and The Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane.