Nelun Harasgama

Nelun Harasgama was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. She is an artist and designer. She graduated with the degree Bachelor in Visual Communication from University of Trent, Nottingham, UK (1980).

Nelun Harasgama's work is distinctively recognisable by the solitary figures as we see in the paintings Spirit (2017) and Palmyrah Dreaming (2017) that Nelun is presenting for Tonight No Poetry Will Serve. These figures sitting or standing within bare interiors or barren landscapes have not only become synonymous with her near-abstract style but have also contributed to her standing as one of the few female artists of her generation. Nelun has been making work for approaching thirty years. On occasions, her solitary figures have been joined by a tree, a window or a chair but rarely much more. The sense of loneliness and isolation within her work is undeniable. "Suffering. It's all round us. It’s in your conscience. It's in one’s genes. We carry suffering within us. Even if we have never suffered in our lives,” explains Nelun. Her work she continues, "is my take on samsara - the eternal cycle of wounding death and mourning. Maybe a person, maybe a culture, maybe a race, it dies. We then mourn its passing while never learning not to do it again." Born and brought up in Sri Lanka, Nelun has travelled around the country extensively and is part of a generation that has witnessed the circuitous changes of the island over the last 40 years. In stark contrast to the work of many other painters in Sri Lanka, her paintings resonate with tension and torment without recourse to an expressionist or gestural style. Nelun's paintings by comparison are stripped bare of painterly marks, identifications or unnecessary details. Starkly painted compositions, like studies in abstraction, provide the backgrounds for her elongated figures. Otherwise everything else has been edited out. Unsurprisingly, Nelun notes, "I paint news flashes. 'A crow found at Maradana Junction' or 'four bodies found on the Poonaryn Road', I do not have an opinion or moral or story to tell. Just a news flash." (Sharmini Pereira 2019)

Neuln’s selected solo exhibitions include Serigraphy, Barefoot Gallery (2014), Spirits, Fort Printers Gallery, Galle (2013), no direction home, Barefoot Gallery, Colombo (2008), Waiting, Barefoot Gallery, Colombo (2006), Wave, Barefoot Gallery, Colombo (2005), Samsara, Barefoot Gallery, Colombo (2001), Blood Lake, Barefoot Gallery, Colombo (2000), Nelun Harasgama, Gallery 706, Colombo (1998) and Nelun Harasgama, The Hermitage Gallery, Colombo (1994).

Nelun Harasgama lives and works in Colombo, Sri Lanka.