Erasing Camouflage

For a good many years Chandragupta Thenuwara was entirely known for his "barrelism", a term which derived from the period in which he turned the roadblocks of this besieged country into works of art. The camouflaged oil drums, after being dragged into the white cube, became a synonym for his personal statement about Sri Lanka's civil war, in particular the loss of respect for the individual, and of civility.
Each year his one man shows - always in the month of July in the non profit Lionel Wendt Gallery in Colombo- were continuations on the subject matter. After the barrels came the more sophisticated road barriers and the camouflage theme remained. Critics and supporters were wondering where it would go next and if in any case Thenuwara had not cornered himself too much with his signature topic?
His latest show "Erasing Camouflage: Post-Barrelism" has been helped along by recent political developments in Sri Lanka. In May this year the 30-year war on the Tamil Tigers was officially declared "over". As Thenuwara says in his statement - at least some aspects of the war that terrorized our society and disrupted our lives, have now come to an end. But that is by no means to say the peace has been won. Terror and displacement are not at an end and have many different faces.

The works in this exhibition are meant as an open invitation to consider de-militarization of society. The question the artist here is posing is: if the face of war is camouflage, what should then be the face of peace?
Thenuwara tells us that the time has come to take away all signs of camouflage, and not allow for these to be replaced by other combat symbols such as the singular ethnic & religious red-yellow-blue flag.
The show consists of a series of canvasses which evolve from traditional green-yellow(military) towards the yellow, blue & red (Singhalese flag) and slowly turning into white (Buddhism). The all white canvas with the all white Singhala inscription reads: "There is no such thing as colour now. There is only white or black".
The pile of sand which looks like an open mass grave, and the white pillars of a shot-to-pieces home, speak for themselves or rather for "Un commemorable Memories". The artists would like to impress on us that there can't be heroism in war. There can only be heroism in peace.

In the current political climate, the warning the artist sends us is of a courageous nature. In the absence of an internationally agreed definition of terrorism I always like to quote Hannah Arendt: Totalitarianism is the iron band of terror which destroys the plurality of men and makes out of many the One who unfailingly will act as though he himself were part of the course of history or nature.
Thenuwara here has made himself One out of Many for which I congratulate and applaud him.