Seasoned artist Pushpakumara Koralagedara’s latest exhibition will be held at Hempel Galleries, 30/3 Barnes Place, Colombo 7 from January 18 to February 7 from 10 am to 5 pm.

Primarily a painter, Pushpakumara brings out a body of minimalist work represented in a series of screen-printed and painted large canvases.

At a time when Sri Lanka has already started to forget its recent past and artists have begun to move away from political and interventionist themes, these are remarkable works.

K. Pushpakumara, who is part of the initial group of artists following the 90s Trend, presents his new work based on the continuing series Goodwill Hardware first seen in his exhibition at Red Dot Gallery in 2009.

From the inception, his art interrogated very personal experiences, and  connected them with the socio-political environment of the time. Primarily a painter, he continues to explore extremely pertinent political themes in his work.

His current exhibition is a second of a series of exhibitions he has planned under Goodwill Harware. Barbed wire was taken as a sign of aggression denoting violence in society; he presented them in covered plastic tubes, arranging them in aesthetic formats of installations and relief work in 2009.

These works unhesitatingly questioned the immediate post-war environment where politics and the general attitude emphasized a false pretense that all violence ended with the cessation of war. His work insinuates otherwise and questions what is underneath the seeming peace.

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