T. Shanaathanan

T. Shanaathanan was born in Innuvil, Sri Lanka. He is a visual artist and historian. Currently he holds the position of Senior lecturer in Art History at the Department of Fine Arts, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka. He is co-founder of the Sri Lankan Archive for Contemporary Art, Architecture and Design, Jaffna. He has degrees in painting from the University of Delhi and Doctor of Philosophy from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (2011).

Shanaathanan is an influential teacher whose academic work deals with the post-colonial, artistic and intellectual histories of Sri Lanka. The shadow of the civil war and the stories of war feature strongly in all his drawings and paintings that foreground lived experiences. The artist uses the medium of drawing to think through concurrently thriving and yet contradictory notions of belonging and otherness that have come to be the hallmark of twenty-first century (post-independence modern nation states reduced to conflict zones across the world) wars - be it Myanmar, Iraq, Kashmir, Sudan or Palestine. In dealing with the atrocities of war, the artist has freed himself from the constraints and conventions of beauty and representation. In its place we have drawings and paintings as a portrayal of political, social, economic, and psychological suffering at large as a result of conflict. His corpus can be viewed as a series of chronicles or records of the violence and travesty of justice in war.

Shanaathanan’s notable presentations are Leaving the Echo Chamber, Sharjah Art Biennale (2019), Invitation to Action, Lahore Biennale (2018), Dhaka Art Summit (2018), forming in the pupil of an eye, Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2016), Insecurities: Tracing Displacement, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2016), 15 invitations, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong (2016), Dis/Placement, Saskia Fernando Gallery, Colombo (2014) and Mismatches, Saskia Fernando Gallery, Colombo (2011), Non-Aligned, Barefoot Gallery, Colombo (2011), War and Peace, Lionel Wendt Gallery & Harold Peiris Gallery, Colombo (2010), Border Zones: New Art across cultures, Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver (2010), APT6, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (2010), The One Year Drawing Project, South Asian Visual Arts Centre, Toronto (2009), The One Year Drawing Project, Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi (2009), and Locating the self, Paradise Road Galleries, Colombo (2006). Shanaathanan’s artists’ book projects with Raking Leaves include The One Year Drawing Project 2005-2007 (2008), The Incomplete Thombu (2011), and A–Z of Conflict (forthcoming).

For Tonight No Poetry Will Serve Shanaathanan has made a painting using a variety of techniques that include collage, stitching, juxtaposing, overlapping and superimposing maps from different projects, places and periods. The artist describes the painting as an attempt to explore the spatial and temporal in the making of self- especially in the context of forced migration, displacement and colonisation.

Shanaathanan lives and works in Jaffna, Sri Lanka.