Grosvenor Gallery is pleased to present The Persistence of Memory, an exhibition of recent paintings by two of Sri Lanka's foremost artists, Chandraguptha Thenuwara and Jagath Weerasinghe. This marks the first time in many years that the two artists are showing together in London.
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Chandraguptha Thenuwara and Jagath Weerasinghe's works draw from their reflections on Sri Lanka's changing political landscape a decade after the civil war.
While Thenuwara's practice interrogates the politics of memory and erasure, Weerasinghe's work offers a frenzied, expressive meditation on tragedy and conflict. Both artists' careers have been profoundly shaped by the island's tumultuous contemporary history, marked by ethnolinguistic conflict and political unrest. The works included in this selection, created between 2021 and 2025, respond to recent events, including the 2022 people's protest movement (Aragalaya) against the Sri Lankan government's economic mismanagement and the subsequent political transition.
Presented in association with Saskia Fernando Gallery, Colombo, the exhibition runs from 9 - 31 October 2025. A special late-night opening will take place during Frieze week on Thursday 16 October, 6-8pm, featuring a guided tour by Chandraguptha Thenuwara.
Chandraguptha Thenuwara's (b. 1960) 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.
Thenuwara's work has been featured in Art Dubai Modern, Dubai (2024); Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Delhi (2023); Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai (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 work is held by several institutional collections including; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), USA; The Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan; Museum of Udmurtia Izhevsk, Russia; John Moores University Art Collection, Liverpool, UK and The Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia.
Jagath Weerasinghe (b. 1954) is another pivotal figure in contemporary Sri Lankan art and has been a significant driving force in its development since the early 1990s. Weerasinghe's work is marked by a frenzied, passionate expressiveness highlighted through intense gestural brushwork.
Weerasinghe's compositions display a pervasive sense of tragedy that shows an urgent concern with the contemporary political order both locally and globally. Weerasinghe examines and critiques Sri Lankan anxieties, responding to collective attitudes - as he observes them, taking themes such as nationhood, religion, identity, and confrontation for commentary. Weerasinghe's practice does not merely reflect disillusionment but extends into an observation of the systemic issues that perpetuate extremism and violence, offering a critical view of the forces shaping contemporary global conflicts.
Jagath Weerasinghe completed his MFA at the American University in Washington DC (1991) and his BFA (Hons) at the Institute of Aesthetic Studies at the University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya (1981). He is the co-founder of the Theertha Collective and the moving force behind collaborations such as the Colombo Art Biennale.
Weerasinghe's work has been exhibited extensively at Baik Art Gallery, Los Angeles; Khoj, New Delhi; Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa; Colombo Art Biennale, Colombo; Asia House, London; Museum fur Volkerkunde Wien, Vienna; Singapore Art Biennale; Asia Pacific Triennial, Brisbane and the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan.