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nine artists'
nine artists' Women Artists Colloquium Exhibition 2010/11
nine artists Women Artists’ Colloquium Exhibition 2010/11
Women Artists' Colloquium (WAC) was started by Theertha as a program that would encourage female artists to actively engage in their art practice. Anoli Perera notes: “While the idea of segregating women artists as a separate category is problematic in general, in a situation where women as artists face varied impositions within their social, cultural and personal contexts, it is important to give special focus to women who are engaged in art to stabilize their careers as artists. Hence, the necessity for programs such as Women Artists' Colloquium”.
In 2008, Anoli Perera mentored the WAC and in 2009, it was continuedunderthetutelageof MenikavanderPooten.Lastyear Jagath Weerasinghe worked with the WAC which resulted in the provocatively-titled and very assertive exhibition Omnipresence of The Prick. However this year's WAC exhibition was developed within a different process. Without the mediation of a mentor, nine women artists from six countries have worked for six months to develop the exhibition. Hence the exhibition is named “Nine Artists”.
Inoka De Silva, Lakisha Fernando, Therika Miyanadeniya and Manori Jayasinghe are from Sri Lanka. Along with them, the international artists Louise Low ( Malaysia), Ruchika Wason Singh ( India), Majela Clancy ( Ireland), Saurganga Darshandhari ( Nepal) and Kusana Ogg ( USA), all who have visited Theertha earlier to participate in workshops and residencies, are taking part in the Nine Artists exhibition. WAC at Theertha, coordinated by Lakisha Fernando has been the connecting point for all of these artists.
The artists have informally connected with each other communicating through email, Facebook and Google Talk. They coined the term Fire Flies Project to refer to their art activities which gradually and organically developed to an interesting exhibition. Fire Flies Project uses the web to engage in knowledge exchanges4
and interactions using a web-based platform to showcase their art and their voices. It exposes them worldwide and enables comments and feedback from distant locations. For more information please visit their site at http://firefliesartproject.blogspot.com/. Nine Artists is an exhibition by Fire Flies' artists, which Theertha sees as a progression and a fruitful development of the previous Colloquiums. It is a healthy sign of the WAC participants’ attempt of trying to actively engage in innovative art projects.
Already the second phase of the Fire Flies Project is attracting women artists from countries other than the above mentioned, to participate in the next women artists' exhibitions. The second phase will have a larger contingency of Sri Lankan women artists that have not participated in this exhibition. Such enthusiasm hopefully will generatesmoreinterestamong SriLankanwomenartistsallowing them to do more collaborative art projects with the international artists.
Finally, it should be mentioned with gratitude that this exhibition is made possible by the financial support of Arts Collaboratory, Hivos and DOEN Foundation, and Mondriaan Foundation as well as the Ford Foundation.
Lalith Manage February 2011
Inoka De Silva
Sri Lanka
inosil_03@yahoo.com
Letters
And some letters stil remain even in the ashes...
Without thinking of war Without talking of war Can we turn over a new page...
Kuzana Ogg
USA
kuzana@yahoo.com
Leaf As a biomorphic painter, the forms in my work refer to living entities. The cycle and development of plant life, and the derivative idea that biological and botanical entities share fundamental similarities, are two recurring themes in my work.
In this current series, the long-standing motifs of mangoes converge with newer imagery of planted fields and urban architecture. This gives voice to a third theme, concerned with our ability to live harmoniously with each other and with nature.
The recent work depicts a composition of isolated land masses divided and folded upon itself like origami. Within these areas, there are groves of mangoes, fields, and buildings-represented mainly by windows. The mangoes are a nostalgic reference to my childhood in India, the seeded fields to a desire for order and continuum, and the windows to the multiple iterations of humanity.
Lakisha Fernando
Sri Lanka
lakisha.niwanthi@gmail.com
Embroidered Web
This work, in a way, could be considered as the result of the female gaze encountering the male gaze.
A man restricts spaces for females, imposes barriers, and webs them in cultural containers. Inside the intricately embroidered web of restrictions, is the oppressed freedom.
Louise Low Malaysia
louise.lsl@gmail.com
Power Line
My works are based on a story line. Each scene of the print has a story to tell, the basic elements are the power
line and lamppost and these are the elements that are being repeated as the backdrop of each scene. The story is an open dialogue reflecting contemporary urban life.
Majella Clancy
Ireland
majellaclancy@gmail.com
Peripheral Space IV
My practice is concerned with painting off the canvas – painting on a photographic surface. It also incorporates other media namely drawing and printmaking. This current body of work useses its starting point photographic imagery and drawings made during a residency at Theertha International Artist Collective, Sri Lanka in 2010. These drawings and images were developed in response to particular spaces that have a specific gender and class association.
This body of work also incorporates imagery from my own Irish rural background in the form of old family photos. These photos also document specific class and gendered spaces. Through merging seemingly-disparate cultural imagery with paint, my practice attempts to question not only the purity of painted space materially but also fixed ideas of cultural/national identity as it relates to my own history and contemporary cultural experiences in a global context. My practice is concerned with the potential of a differing spatial order within paint and its possible relationship to cultural and sexual difference. It seeks to address multiple and provisional positions and experiences.
Manori Jayasingha
Sri Lanka
slmanori@yahoo.com
White Black White
it’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness
Ruchika Wason Singh
India
ruchikawsingh@gmail.com
Innocuos habitat?
My works reveal my observations and experiences from my immediate and personal environment .My experiences from the roles I play have shaped my art and helped me re-frame from time to time, the very need and reason to paint or create. These have guided the work process and the visual vocabulary in my work, which have been built over a period of time. Often forms from my daily engagements of life emerge on paper; initially for their own apparent and individual meaning. Later they begin to diverge from this immediacy of association, as I am able to look at them as sources of commentary beyond the personal domain. The forms of the womb, womb-like trees, channels, crib, nest, umbilical cord, the shopping cart, the home, maps etc. are the spaces of nurture and existence, consumption and recreation in my life. Through these I first search for established experiences and then go beyond , trying to explore a relationship between human habitat and environment. In Innocuous Habitat ? I & II the objects of everyday life reveal this challenging relationship , which comfortably escapes our consciousness.
Saurganga Darshandhari
Nepal
dsaurganga@yahoo.com
traditional culture.
12
Crowd I am influenced by my culture and surroundings. I like to include "my self" with my feelings, in my work. I am a woman my self. And my works’ subject matter is from my surroundings. In these works, I have used symbols which are very important in our lives, in our
Therika Miyanadeniya
Sri Lanka
therica1922@yahoo.com
Glass Box
You can see it, but its there, you cant touch it, but its hard to break through, you cant feel it, but it inflicts, ...its is the ‘Glass box’, that invisible shield surrounding the women.
www.firefliesartproject.blogspot.com
Women Artists' Colloquium (WAC) was started by Theertha as a program that would encourage female artists to actively engage in their art practice. Anoli Perera notes: “While the idea of segregating women artists as a separate category is problematic in general, in a situation where women as artists face varied impositions within their social, cultural and personal contexts, it is important to give special focus to women who are engaged in art to stabilize their careers as artists. Hence, the necessity for programs such as Women Artists' Colloquium”.
In 2008, Anoli Perera mentored the WAC and in 2009, it was continuedunderthetutelageof MenikavanderPooten.Lastyear Jagath Weerasinghe worked with the WAC which resulted in the provocatively-titled and very assertive exhibition Omnipresence of The Prick. However this year's WAC exhibition was developed within a different process. Without the mediation of a mentor, nine women artists from six countries have worked for six months to develop the exhibition. Hence the exhibition is named “Nine Artists”.
Inoka De Silva, Lakisha Fernando, Therika Miyanadeniya and Manori Jayasinghe are from Sri Lanka. Along with them, the international artists Louise Low ( Malaysia), Ruchika Wason Singh ( India), Majela Clancy ( Ireland), Saurganga Darshandhari ( Nepal) and Kusana Ogg ( USA), all who have visited Theertha earlier to participate in workshops and residencies, are taking part in the Nine Artists exhibition. WAC at Theertha, coordinated by Lakisha Fernando has been the connecting point for all of these artists.
The artists have informally connected with each other communicating through email, Facebook and Google Talk. They coined the term Fire Flies Project to refer to their art activities which gradually and organically developed to an interesting exhibition. Fire Flies Project uses the web to engage in knowledge exchanges4
and interactions using a web-based platform to showcase their art and their voices. It exposes them worldwide and enables comments and feedback from distant locations. For more information please visit their site at http://firefliesartproject.blogspot.com/. Nine Artists is an exhibition by Fire Flies' artists, which Theertha sees as a progression and a fruitful development of the previous Colloquiums. It is a healthy sign of the WAC participants’ attempt of trying to actively engage in innovative art projects.
Already the second phase of the Fire Flies Project is attracting women artists from countries other than the above mentioned, to participate in the next women artists' exhibitions. The second phase will have a larger contingency of Sri Lankan women artists that have not participated in this exhibition. Such enthusiasm hopefully will generatesmoreinterestamong SriLankanwomenartistsallowing them to do more collaborative art projects with the international artists.
Finally, it should be mentioned with gratitude that this exhibition is made possible by the financial support of Arts Collaboratory, Hivos and DOEN Foundation, and Mondriaan Foundation as well as the Ford Foundation.
Lalith Manage February 2011
Inoka De Silva
Sri Lanka
inosil_03@yahoo.com
Letters
And some letters stil remain even in the ashes...
Without thinking of war Without talking of war Can we turn over a new page...
Kuzana Ogg
USA
kuzana@yahoo.com
Leaf As a biomorphic painter, the forms in my work refer to living entities. The cycle and development of plant life, and the derivative idea that biological and botanical entities share fundamental similarities, are two recurring themes in my work.
In this current series, the long-standing motifs of mangoes converge with newer imagery of planted fields and urban architecture. This gives voice to a third theme, concerned with our ability to live harmoniously with each other and with nature.
The recent work depicts a composition of isolated land masses divided and folded upon itself like origami. Within these areas, there are groves of mangoes, fields, and buildings-represented mainly by windows. The mangoes are a nostalgic reference to my childhood in India, the seeded fields to a desire for order and continuum, and the windows to the multiple iterations of humanity.
Lakisha Fernando
Sri Lanka
lakisha.niwanthi@gmail.com
Embroidered Web
This work, in a way, could be considered as the result of the female gaze encountering the male gaze.
A man restricts spaces for females, imposes barriers, and webs them in cultural containers. Inside the intricately embroidered web of restrictions, is the oppressed freedom.
Louise Low Malaysia
louise.lsl@gmail.com
Power Line
My works are based on a story line. Each scene of the print has a story to tell, the basic elements are the power
line and lamppost and these are the elements that are being repeated as the backdrop of each scene. The story is an open dialogue reflecting contemporary urban life.
Majella Clancy
Ireland
majellaclancy@gmail.com
Peripheral Space IV
My practice is concerned with painting off the canvas – painting on a photographic surface. It also incorporates other media namely drawing and printmaking. This current body of work useses its starting point photographic imagery and drawings made during a residency at Theertha International Artist Collective, Sri Lanka in 2010. These drawings and images were developed in response to particular spaces that have a specific gender and class association.
This body of work also incorporates imagery from my own Irish rural background in the form of old family photos. These photos also document specific class and gendered spaces. Through merging seemingly-disparate cultural imagery with paint, my practice attempts to question not only the purity of painted space materially but also fixed ideas of cultural/national identity as it relates to my own history and contemporary cultural experiences in a global context. My practice is concerned with the potential of a differing spatial order within paint and its possible relationship to cultural and sexual difference. It seeks to address multiple and provisional positions and experiences.
Manori Jayasingha
Sri Lanka
slmanori@yahoo.com
White Black White
it’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness
Ruchika Wason Singh
India
ruchikawsingh@gmail.com
Innocuos habitat?
My works reveal my observations and experiences from my immediate and personal environment .My experiences from the roles I play have shaped my art and helped me re-frame from time to time, the very need and reason to paint or create. These have guided the work process and the visual vocabulary in my work, which have been built over a period of time. Often forms from my daily engagements of life emerge on paper; initially for their own apparent and individual meaning. Later they begin to diverge from this immediacy of association, as I am able to look at them as sources of commentary beyond the personal domain. The forms of the womb, womb-like trees, channels, crib, nest, umbilical cord, the shopping cart, the home, maps etc. are the spaces of nurture and existence, consumption and recreation in my life. Through these I first search for established experiences and then go beyond , trying to explore a relationship between human habitat and environment. In Innocuous Habitat ? I & II the objects of everyday life reveal this challenging relationship , which comfortably escapes our consciousness.
Saurganga Darshandhari
Nepal
dsaurganga@yahoo.com
traditional culture.
12
Crowd I am influenced by my culture and surroundings. I like to include "my self" with my feelings, in my work. I am a woman my self. And my works’ subject matter is from my surroundings. In these works, I have used symbols which are very important in our lives, in our
Therika Miyanadeniya
Sri Lanka
therica1922@yahoo.com
Glass Box
You can see it, but its there, you cant touch it, but its hard to break through, you cant feel it, but it inflicts, ...its is the ‘Glass box’, that invisible shield surrounding the women.
www.firefliesartproject.blogspot.com