Chandragupta Thenuwara is busy overseeing the skeleton of his latest exhibition calcify at the Saskia Fernando Gallery. With paint-daubed fingers, just in from his studio in Athurugiriya, he is lost in the minutiae of where the floor tile installations that form part of the oeuvre should go; and where his famous ‘barrels’ should stand guard.
His yearly July exhibition (this year happening from July 23 till August 23) has become a fixture in Colombo – an artistic lens through which to peep at the anti-Tamil violence of the annus horribilis 1983.
