THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY ARTISTS THENUWARA AND WEERASINGHE EXHIBITION IN LONDON

 The Persistence of Memory brings Thenuwara and Weerasinghe together not merely as contemporaries, but as witnesses. Their works function as archives of lived experience, recording the residue of war, corruption, and resilience. Together, they ask: what does it mean to remember in a nation that seeks to forget?

The Grosvenor Gallery in London presents The Persistence of Memory, an exhibition featuring recent works by Chandraguptha Thenuwara and Jagath Weerasinghe—two of Sri Lanka’s most influential contemporary artists from 9–31 October 2025. Presented in association with Saskia Fernando Gallery, Colombo, the exhibition marks the first time in many years that the two visionaries exhibit together in London, reuniting in a city that has long played a role in shaping global conversations around art, history, and identity. Their works, created between 2021 and 2025, explore the complexities of Sri Lanka’s post-war psyche, and how memory, trauma, and resistance continue to shape its political and cultural fabric. Both artists reflect on the island’s turbulent journey, from the end of the civil war to the 2022 people’s protest movement (Aragalaya),

which demanded justice and accountability from a faltering government. Thenuwara and Weerasinghe—both artist-activists—approach the politics of memory in contrasting yet complementary ways. While Thenuwara exposes the mechanisms of erasure and beautification that obscure truth, Weerasinghe lays bare the emotional weight of collective trauma through visceral, expressive canvases. Together, they embody the conscience of a nation still reckoning with its past. Chandraguptha Thenuwara: The Art of Remembering the Unseen Born in 1960, Chandraguptha Thenuwara has built a practice grounded in the politics of memory, violence, and state control. His art unflinchingly confronts what he calls the “glitch” in Sri Lanka’s obsession with beautification—the tendency to conceal pain beneath a veneer of progress. Through recurring motifs such as barrels, barricades, soldiers, and stupas, Thenuwara exposes the camouflage of post-war propaganda, creating an unrelenting critique of national amnesia. A graduate of the Moscow State Art Institute (1992), Thenuwara also holds an M.Phil. from the University of Kelaniya’s Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology. He is the founder of the Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts (VAFA), an artist-run space established to support the fledgling contemporary art scene in Sri Lanka. His prolific exhibition history spans more than four decades, including landmark solo shows such as Neo-Glitch (2025), Meta Real (2024), Delusion (2023), and Ecce Homo (2022) at Saskia Fernando Gallery, Colombo, and Barrelism: Camouflage (2006) in Australia. Group exhibitions include Art Dubai Modern (2024), Frieze London (2022), and Cities on the Move (1997–99), curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Hou Hanru—a show that positioned Thenuwara at the forefront of Asian contemporary art. His work is housed in major international collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (Japan), the Queensland Art Gallery (Australia), and the John Moores University Art Collection (UK). Thenuwara’s recent works on view at Grosvenor Gallery—such as Neo-Glitch: Skyscape (2025) and BLINDS: Hope (2021)— continue his exploration of distorted landscapes and the contradictions of beauty and brutality. Beneath their formal precision lies a restless interrogation of truth. For Thenuwara, art is not merely an aesthetic pursuit; it is a political act, a demand for honesty in the face of collective forgetting. Jagath Weerasinghe: Witness and Prophet of a Troubled Land Jagath Weerasinghe (b. 1954) is another towering figure in Sri Lankan contemporary art and a founding influence behind its resurgence in the 1990s. Known for his emotionally charged, gestural brushwork, Weerasinghe transforms paint into a language of resistance and mourning.

His works often convey an atmosphere of anxiety and tragedy—an urgent reckoning with violence, nationalism, and spiritual decay. Educated at the University of Kelaniya (BFA, 1981) and the American University in Washington DC (MFA, 1991), Weerasinghe’s practice extends beyond painting to curation, education, and activism. He co-founded the Theertha Collective, which became a crucial platform for Sri Lankan artists engaging with global contemporary discourse, and helped shape events such as the Colombo Art Biennale. His international exhibitions include the Singapore Art Biennale, Asia Pacific Triennial (Brisbane), Serendipity Arts Festival (Goa), Khoj (New Delhi), and Art Dubai. Solo shows such as Discovery of Histories (2024) and Impetus (2023) reveal his ongoing commitment to probing memory and moral collapse in both local and global contexts. In works such as Under the Dark Sky… Among the Rubble (2025) and The Troubled Land (2025), Weerasinghe’s canvases pulsate with urgency.

Thick strokes and abstracted figures convey not only devastation but also endurance—the human capacity to persist, remember, and rebuild. His art becomes both elegy and prophecy, challenging audiences to confront the emotional residue of history. Weerasinghe’s works are included in prestigious collections such as LACMA (Los Angeles) and the Fukuoka Art Museum (Japan), underscoring his place among the region’s most significant cultural voices. The Persistence of Memory brings Thenuwara and Weerasinghe together not merely as contemporaries, but as witnesses. Their works function as archives of lived experience, recording the residue of war, corruption, and resilience. Together, they ask: what does it mean to remember in a nation that seeks to forget? As Sri Lanka continues to confront questions of identity and justice, these two masters remind us that memory is not static—it is an act of persistence