JAGATH WEERASINGHE
REWRITING THE LAST LOVE LETTER & OTHER WORKS
JAGATH WEERASINGHE
1 MAY 2015 - 30 MAY 2015
The works in this show are coming from different times - they can’t be put under the usual label of ‘recent works’ - for such a naming will imply that this is a body of work that can be bound together by a temporal thread. They cannot be. But even as they come from different times and with different associations, for me - like all my works have always been - they are about violence and loss in the widest sense of the two concepts. While some of these works, such as ’Unfinished Landscape’ and ‘Burning Book’ came in response to the war that ended in 2009, some others are more about personal predicaments. The knot between the two is the inescapable intersection between self and history. The latter works I have titled ‘Rewriting the Last Love Letter’. This I know is paradoxical. In a way all my work and life has always been about ‘rewriting’ something or another because what was already written to/on me was never mine as such, but then they were mine as well. To claim that they were not mine is to acquire a position outside of self - and this is not a real option for anyone. Rewriting something that has already been written for the last time is sad, and this has the sound of the never-ending torture (pleasure) - for me this, however paradoxical it sounds, is inevitable. This is the predicament of being human. Nobody ever writes the ‘last love letter’ for the first time - it’s always a rewriting. That’s because to love is to write an event on a blank canvas. To love is to insert self in the intersection of self/history again and again. To love is to live with the ontological insecurities of being. JAGATH WEERASINGHE APRIL 2015
Armory, 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 143 x 173cm
Celestial Violence, 2011, Acrylic on canvas, 138 x 168cm
The Burning Book, 2008, Acrylic on canvas, 90 x 80cm
Unfinished Landscape, 2011, Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 305cm
Books Are Burning, 2008, Acrylic on canvas, 90 x 90cm
Celestial Violence, 2009, Acrylic on canvas, 89 x 91cm
Rewriting the Last Love Letter, 2008, Acrylic on canvas, 122 x 152cm
Rewriting the Last Love Letter I, 2008, Acrylic on canvas, 123 x 153cm
Rewriting the Last Love Letter II, 2008, Acrylic on canvas, 122 x 153cm
Patient, 2012, Acrylic on canvas, 122 x 122cm
Rewriting the Last Love Letter III, 2010-11, Acrylic on canvas, 90 x 102cm
Untitled, 2014, Acrylic on paper, 76 x 76cm
Rewriting the Last Love Letter IV, 2015, Acrylic on paper, 76 x 76cm
Dancing Shiva, 2015, Acrylic on paper, 76 x 76cm
Dambulla III, 2013, Mixed media on paper, 29 x 29cm
Dambulla V, 2013, Mixed media on paper, 29 x 29cm
Dambulla VIII, 2013, Mixed media on paper, 29 x 27cm
Dancing Shiva, 2008, Mixed media on paper, 29 x 22.5cm
JAGATH WEERASINGHE b.1954 Education 1991 Master of Fine Arts (Painting), American University, Washington DC, United States of America 1988 Conservation of Rock Art, Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles, United States of America 1985 Conservation of Wall Paintings, International Center for the Scientific Study and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) 1981 Bachelors of Fine Arts, (Honors in Painting, Minor: Sculpture), Institute of Aesthetic Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka Selected Solo Exhibitions 2014 Decorated, Breese Little, London, United Kingdom 2014 Decorated, Saskia Fernando Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka 2009 Shiva Nataraja, Saskia Fernando Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka 2006 The Reading Room: Thousand Shivas and Thousand Mics, Singapore Biennale (Curated by Fumio Nanjo, Sharmini Perira, Eugene Tan and Roger McDonald), Singapore 2005 The Celestial Underwear, Phenomenal Space Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka 2004 Urban and the Individual, Phenomenal Space Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka 2003 Paradise Road Galleries, Colombo, Sri Lanka 2000 (My) Inability of Painting Women, Gallery 706, Colombo, Sri Lanka 1997 Recent Paintings, Paradise Road Galleries, Colombo, Sri Lanka 1997 Yantragala and the Round Pilgrimage, Heritage Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka 1995 Lionel Wendt Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka 1992 Anxiety, National Gallery of Art, Colombo, Sri Lanka Selected Group Exhibitions 2014 All Together Now!, Breese Little, London, United Kingdom 2014 Colombo Art Biennale, Colombo, Sri Lanka 2012 Drawings, Breese Little, London, United Kingdom 2012 Mediated (Data Art), Saskia Fernando Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka 2012 Art of Resistance, Espace Gallery, New Delhi, India 2012 Colombo Art Biennale, Colombo, Sri Lanka 2011 Contemporary Art From Sri Lanka 2011, Asia House, London, United Kingdom 2009 Artful Resistance: Crisis and Creativity in Sri Lanka, Museum fur Volkerkunde Wien, Vienna, Austria 2009 Designing Peace, Marian Pasat Roces, MCDA, Manila, Philippines
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