Emergency | A Group Show: Nadia de Los Santos, Hanusha Somasunderam and Mika Tennekoon

16 - 31 March 2017

We have observed a strong emergence of young artists working in diverse mediums in the past five years. Their backgrounds vary from design fields, universities across the island and expatriates whom have made Sri Lanka their home. The works of these three female artists hold at it’s core the practice of drawing that has evolved into different materials and forms. Hanusha Somasunderam studied at the University of Jaffna and has exhibited her work in group shows locally and internationally. Her work documents the strife of the tea pluckers of Sri Lanka and her first hand experiences of growing up enthuse environment. In all her work she incorporates materials and imagery used in the industry to bring further attention to the struggle of these women and their families. Mika Tennekoon studied at the Academy of Design and later Santiniketan. She began working with illustration and graphic design while gradually moving towards drawing and painting. Her medium varies from paper taken from old ledger books, to canvas and installation. The themes of nature, mankind, feminism and spirituality have a resounding presence throughout her body of work. Nadia de Los Santos is originally from India and settled in Sri Lanka as a teacher at the Academy of Design. In her work she gives meaning to originally mundane objects in an effort to acknowledge the process of an expatriate adapting to new environments and cultures. She often chooses to work on a smaller scale to enable the mobility of her pieces as she moves around the world and the subject matter revolves strongly around her life as an expatriate. In this particular series of work Nadia focuses on typical chairs as a symbol of home and comfort, transforming her line drawings into direct translations of wire wall sculptures.

 

Saskia Fernando 2017

 

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