Jagath Weerasinghe (1954) is a Sri Lankan contemporary artist and archeologist.

He has been a significant driving force in the development of Sri Lankan art since the early 1990s. He is Director of the Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology at the University of Kelaniya.

He obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours in Painting at the Institute of Aesthetic Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka in 1981 and in 1985 he received a Conservation of Wall Paintings, International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) in Rome, which was followed in 1988 by a Conservation of Rock Art from the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles

In 1991 Weerasinghe obtained a Master of Fine Arts in Painting at the American University, Washington, D.C. He coined the phrase ‘90s Art Trend’, recognising at the time the need for a cohesive framework to describe the activity of his peer group and then he not only co-­‐founded the Theertha International Artists Collective in 2000, he remains also the driving force which continues to foster new artists and initiatives.

Theertha International Artists Collective remains as one of the most successful and active collectives within the South Asian region, a history of 17 years of contribution towards the local art scene and regional development even during the politically unstable times has caught my attention since a very long time even within my own artistic practice. As a diaspora artist my research mostly surrounds the idea of connecting with our geographically spread but common roots.

As a long term colleague, observer and critique of the collective and after few months of discussion and development since the last proposal I believe that I would be more interested to understand the collective from the perspective of one of the main founders in order to understand the need for it and the importance of it.

Focusing on the Co-­‐Founder it exemplifies that he continues not only through the collective to trigger discourse within the art education in an impressive visionary manner, it is also visible in his latest brainchild, the newly founded Theertha School of Arts. Jagath is to me an example of endurance and dedication towards the arts not only in a Sri Lankan context also in South Asian context. He continuously encourages the theoretical framework within the arts in Sri Lanka but on the other hand and maybe due to his humble personality he never forced himself to an solo exhibition where I could observe and understand his influence on an entire generation of artists and I believe that within a South Asian context this would be a novum to show his works in this manner.

Sri Lankan Art is still about to emerge on the international markets and mainly I feel that the introduction of artists like Jagath is of more importance to me in order to understand also following generations, his students and initiatives.

I felt also that in the previous exhibition proposal there were too many ideas that would maybe dissolve my main intention.

By focusing on this one particular artist I could work better on the essence which is the concept of writing a letter to this particular artist.So the collaborative element is mainly reduced that I am writing a letter to Jagath that would build the foundation of the following project.This letter would mainly include how personally certain political developments in the world unrest me and that I am out of ideas how we can ethically respond as artists to the questions of the current unrest of times…it could be seen as conversation between two artists where Jagath will take up the role in respond with the wisdom of his experience and art to my questions.

He is an artist who has lived through the traumas of civil war as an engaged member of political opposition and as an intellectual who in many conversations has the birds eye perspective and also the seismographic understanding of a senior artist with the interesting element is that his narratives are not only engaging from a local perspective rather they reflect and reveal many universal roots of the political, economically unstable times we are living in.

What mainly caught my attention that his work in particular to an unusual level visualize the personal trauma on the background of a biography that has been mainly influenced by living in an arena of civil war.Yet they remain to show more the personal conflict , detailed and to an very uncommon level in a South Asian context.

I feel that even in recent write ups though these personal honesty is an South Asian context is always been described as secondary as compared to the political citizen Weerasinghe and the nations trauma.

With the planned exhibition I would like to shed more light on the emotional understanding of his works cause since I feel this part of his practice needs deeper attention and curatorial understanding and engagement than I have seen before.