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As we approach the completion of one year at our new Galle Road space, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to our artists, patrons, and supporters for trusting our vision and being part of our journey. Opened last December with Jagath Ravindra’s Sobāthma, 138 Galle Road has since served as a space dedicated to strengthening the visibility of contemporary Sri Lankan art within an ever-growing art ecosystem. Marking the beginning of new relationships, exhibitions by Anushiya Sundaralingam, Sivasubramaniam Kajendran, Manram Gamage, Anupa Perera, and Tilak Samarawickrema were the first time these artists were presented at the gallery. further expanded the scope of their practices with performances that helped activate the space further.
Indian artist Chandra Bhattacharjee’s Hazy Existences, also presented at Galle Road, marked his first exhibition in Sri Lanka.
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Pradeep Thalawatta, Anushiya Sundaralingam, Chudamani Clowes and Liz Fernando joined SFG’s stable of represented artists this year, further expanding the areas of thematic and artistic inquiry we engage with.
From left to right: Anushiya Sundaralingam, Chudamani Clowes, Pradeep Thalawatta, Liz Fernando
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Pradeep Thalawatta explores the intersections of material culture and everyday life. Using imagery drawn from popular and mass culture, such as packaging, found objects, and the vernacular aesthetics of the street, the artist examines the complexities of social relations, economic struggles, and urban realities in his practice.
Based in Belfast, Anushiya Sundaralingam works across a wide range of media—including printmaking, mixed media, installations, drawing, sculpture, textiles, painting, and performance. Sundaralingam uses fluidity, texture and colour to reflect the intricacies of belonging. Relocating to Northern Ireland from Sri Lanka in the 1980s, the artist’s practice examines notions of identity-making, lost cultures and displacement.
Liz Fernando is a photographer whose work finds its roots in conceptual research. Her research though at a personal as well as at an academic level into the role of photography highlights the different meanings that photography inhabits. Her practice often deals with the notions of memory wherein the personal archive inhabits a fundamental space, both aesthetically and practically within non-western cultures.
Chudamani Clowes engages with postcolonial histories to explore the enduring effects of empire and migration in the present. Her work reimagines the portrayal of non-European bodies in Western museums, interrogates the colonial legacies embedded in ethnographic archives, and reclaims personal and collective narratives shaped by displacement.
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Kingsley Gunatillake, Māra, Saskia Fernando Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2025 |
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Earlier this year, H.A. Karunaratne, alongside Jagath Weerasinghe, Chandraguptha Thenuwara, and Jagath Ravindra, were also featured in the central exhibition of KALĀ 2025 Pivot Glide Echo. Continuing from its first edition, the exhibition attempted to trace different strands in artistic imagination that shape Sri Lankan art history.
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For our fourth presentation at the India Art Fair, we curated a showcase on and around the works of the father of Abstract Art in Sri Lanka, H.A. Karunaratne. Responding to his work, the presentation included works by Kingsley Gunatillake, Jagath Ravindra, Kavan Balasuriya and Ruwan Prasanna, while Sandatharaka Abeysinghe offered a refreshing break from the theme with surrealist representations of underwater landscape.
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India Art Fair 2025 |
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Art Mumbai 2025 |
We made our debut at Art Mumbai, where we had the opportunity to showcase nine Sri Lankan artists, whose works trace the country’s layered histories and its ongoing negotiation between the local and the global. The lineup included Anupa Perera, Arjuna Gunarathne, Anushiya Sundaralingam, Chandraguptha Thenuwara, Chudamani Clowes, H.A. Karunaratne, Hema Shironi, Tilak Samarawickrema, and Jagath Weerasinghe. |
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Grosvenor Gallery’s The Persistence of Memory, an exhibition of recent paintings by Chandraguptha Thenuwara and Jagath Weerasinghe, held to coincide with Freize, marked the first time in many years that the two artists presented together in London.
The Persistence of Memory, Grosvenor Gallery, London, UK, 2025
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Hema Shironi’s Shelter for Life and Starving Flag were acquired by Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) following its inclusion in the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, Brisbane. The works are notable for the artist’s inquiry into the politicisation of language and the travesties of inequality and injustice as subjects requiring deep and necessary interrogation.
Pradeep Thalawatta and Hema Shironi featured in (Un)Layering the Future Past of South Asia, curated by Salima Hashmi and co-curated by Manmeet K Walia at SOAS Gallery, London, UK. The exhibition addressed tradition, co-existence and exploration within South Asia that emphasises the interconnectedness in the region, and the collective memory of being a nation. |
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Arjuna Gunarathne, Look, Rajiv Menon Contemporary, Los Angeles, USA, 2025
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Six Sri Lankan artists, including Kingsley Gunatillake, Chandraguptha Thenuwara, and Jagath Weerasinghe, featured in the exhibition After Aphantasias that opened in September at Bikaner House, New Delhi. The exhibition presented by Shrine Empire Gallery confronted the persistence of societal aphantasia while fostering critical dialogue in a climate characterised by an ambiguous future and burdened with unresolved conflicts.
Arjuna Gunarathne made his LA debut with Rajiv Menon Contemporary’s LOOK, an investigation into how style, fantasy, and heightened atmospheres can serve as conduits for deep emotional truths. The artist, who is also jointly represented by Mumbai-based Akara Contemporary, was showcased in a group presentation, Room For Seeing, an exhibition grounded in the act of observing and perceiving space
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| Sivasubraniam Kajendran attended the Cité internationale des arts Residency in Paris this year. The programme offered the artist an opportunity to further develop his work on femininity, representation and race and expand on his ongoing project on memory and materiality. This residency was made possible by the collaborative efforts of the French Embassy in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, the Udayshanth & Angelika Fernando Foundation, and l’Institut Français. |  |
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Building on the gallery’s commitment to strengthening the visibility of Sri Lankan art and deepening public engagement, Saskia Fernando Gallery commissioned a series of artworks for the recently inaugurated Cinnamon Life NUWA. The project aligns with the gallery’s vision to make contemporary art more accessible by integrating it into public spaces, while exploring opportunities for experimentation and aligning art with everyday life. Conceptualised around themes of culture, maritime tradelinks and water ecologies, the curation included works by Sivasubramaniam Kajendran, Hashan Cooray, Sandatharaka Abeysinghe, Susiman Nirmalavasan, and Manaram Gamage.
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