Anupa Khemadasa
Toronto, CANADA - Sri Lankan-Canadian Artist, Anupa Khemadasa, brings you a traditional Sri Lankan art style mixed with poignant political imagery, and we’re very excited to share her work!
FROM THE ARTIST: The lockdown posed challenges to social interactive artwork I do. As a result, I focused on drawing and painting. I tried creating work inspired by objects in my apartment in Toronto. The Pageant series is a work in progress that is inspired by a painting on my wall which I bought at an artisan market in Sri Lanka during my last visit there in 2019. The traditional paintings often come with beautiful floral patterns, showing elephants carrying kings, queens and the nobility and they are a common wall decoration in Sri Lankan households.
In The Pageant series I tried to recreate the traditional paintings with narratives that have often been left out and eliminated from discourse. Same sex couples, western colonizers (Sri Lanka was colonized from 1505 - 1948) wearing Sri Lankan traditional masks (Masks represent various ills in Sri Lankan folk mythology.) replace the nobility in these paintings.
ABOUT THE ARTIST: Anupa Khemadasa is a Sri Lankan – Canadian multi-disciplinary artist living in Toronto. She has created large scale immersive installations in Toronto and Sri Lanka and will be featuring a new work for Nuit Blanche, Toronto in 2021. Her socially empathic art practice is often informed by her immigrant experience. She is also a musician/cellist and is currently working on a solo cello work for a dance in the Bharatanatyam form.