Kin: Shanika Wijesinghe
Saskia Fernando Gallery is pleased to present Shanika Wijesinghe’s first solo exhibition Kin.
Linking one form to another, Wijesinghe imagines intrinsic connections across the human and animal world, seeing them as a single, interconnected whole. Rooted in post-humanist ideas which challenge the centrality of humankind, the exhibition speculates a world where the lines that separate the world of the human and the non-human cease to exist.
Shanika Wijesinghe (b. 1970, Colombo; lives and works in Colombo) is a visual artist and an animal advocate. Her practice is shaped by close observation of human behaviour and interaction, while also drawing from Jataka stories and broader South Asian manuscript art. Her paintings are a labyrinth of multiple forms fused together, often blurring boundaries that separate humans from other forms of nature. Grounded in a belief in active empathy and the principles of ahimsa (non-violence), her work seeks to restore connections across all life and gesture towards healing in a divided world.