Anoli Perera

Anoli Perera is a Sri Lankan artist and writer. She was born in Colombo and has degrees in Political Science, Economics and Sociology from the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka (1984) followed by Postgraduate Diploma in International Affairs from the Bandaranaike Center for International Studies, Sri Lanka (1986). Her art education came through part-time adult education art programs at City College, Santa Barbara and Artworks, Princeton, USA (1989-1991).

Anoli’s work engages critically on a range of themes from women’s issues, history and myth to issues of identity, colonialism and post-colonial anxieties. Her most recent solo exhibition was The City: Janus Faced, Shrine Empire Gallery, New Delhi (2018), and Memory Keeper, Shrine Empire Gallery, New Delhi (2013). Her notable group exhibitions include Sea Change, Colomboscope, Colombo (2019), Possibilities For a Non- Alienated Life, 4th Edition of Kochi Muziris Biennale, Kochi, (2018), Colombo Art Biennale (2009, 2012 & 2014), Artful Resistance, Museum of Anthropology, Vienna (2009) and Museum der Weltkulturen, Frankfurt (2010), Separating Myth from Reality (Art Festival), Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Japan (2002). More recently her work was included in the exhibition titled Greetings from India organised as part of 5th Edition of Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival in China in November (2019), and One Hundred Thousand Small Tales; the inaugural exhibition of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Colombo, Sri Lanka (2019).

For Tonight No Poetry Will Serve Anoli has worked on a suite of new drawings in mixed on printed paper titled Retouched Series (1-IV). In these drawings, the artist has used the scribbled pages from her mother’s telephone directory and overlaid these with the photographs of her mother that she has been taking over the past many years. The drawings operate much like a mediative record of the time spent between the mother and daughter highlighting the need for intimacy, connection, the need to be there for the other facing memory loss.

Anoli Perera is a co-founder of the Theertha International Artists Collective, a progressive art initiative based in Colombo. She currently lives and works between New Delhi, India and Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Cancer has made inroads into the orbits of our lives silently, making us relook at our ways of life, our consumption patterns, our genetics, our ancestry to find the cause, prevention and find ways to live with its aftermath. Two of my maternal aunts are long term cancer survivors and my cousin managed to overcome a sarcoma 3 years ago. They all are left with legacies of their fight with cancer. This puts me too, in a high-risk category where annual monitoring is required. We all know that once born, disease and death is inevitable. But what we frequently forget is that it is not easy to face or overcome diseases such as cancer alone. Everyone faced with the threat of cancer should get a fighting chance to overcome it. I am happy to be part of this fundraiser as I truly believe in its cause.