Chandraguptha Thenuwara Sri Lankan , b. 1960

Chandraguptha Thenuwara’s (b. 1960, Galle) 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 founded the Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts (VAFA), an artist-run school dedicated to fostering the still-fledgling Sri Lankan contemporary art scene after completing a postgraduate programme in Fine Arts from the Moscow State Institute (formerly in the USSR). 

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.