Firi Rahman expresses deep empathy for creatures of flight.  He observes in their mannerisms a forlorn hope - the expressions of loss and grief - mirroring human experiences. It is these observations that Rahman draws from in his exploration of home or therein the lack of a home.  In the Journey series a recurring visual motif emerges: bird cages, veiled and concealed from the observer's direct view. These cages are noticeably vacant and devoid of any inhabitants. The concealment of the cage evocative of a funeral shroud. Cages and nests become conduits for the complex emotions that accompany loss and the dissonances that follow in the act processing and moving on. 

The pencil and ink drawings appear as residues left behind after the vibrancy of colour is removed, evoking a contained expression of hope enveloped in the angst of separation, bitter grief that mixes with warm affection. The monochromatic shades of black, and lucid lines convey fathomless emotions in its vulnerability. 

The lone figures of Arjuna Gunerathne’s Day to Day series reflect a private world of anxieties & vulnerabilities. This disquietude becomes visceral in the uncanny figures, manifesting in deformed heads and jagged and jutting limbs. Suspended in cloud-like formations the figures are sprawled out pensively and seemingly mired by their solitude. Stemming from the artist’ experience of migration and adapting to new environments, the pen on paper drawings reflect the ruptures in one’s sense of belonging that accompany prolonged loneliness. 

Jagath Weerasinghe’s practice centres on his reactions to social calamities and personal pains. The Belief series turns its focus on a major civilizational crisis played out through mass migration - millions of people forced to leave behind their “lives” and “memories”. Weerasinghe is focused on an intimate engagement with the suffering - ontological anxieties - of the individual caught in a crisis that is global and local at the same time. For everyone that has ‘left a place’, there are so many others who are ‘left behind’. Weerasinghe expresses a deep sadness tinged with a melancholy hope, in the same vein as the writings and musings of great writers, philosophers and poets longing for the familiarity of home. 

The Dambulla series notes the point of rupture in Weerasinghe’s perception of identity - an awareness of the nationalistic sentiments that exist within his person. The work is a cathartic contemplation as he contends with the insidiousness of nationalist rhetoric and the propensity for this sentiment to stoke violence. A poignant reaction to the violence the artist witnessed in 1983, Dambulla becomes an ironic visual motif in which the artist’s disillusionment and cynicism finds perches.