folk tells

folk memory as personal myth
research project & exhibition | 2021 - 2022 

Install View: Trax Gallery, Ahangama, Sri Lanka - Feb-Mar 2023 (charcoal & watercolour - paintings & drawings + zine)


This body of work plays with memory to develop a working-personal-myth. Made in periods of uncertainty & isolation; the pandemic of ‘20 & the political-economic crisis of ’22 in Sri Lanka. Hyper-local, folk-myths were researched channelled & conjured into the landscape of the body to excavate the common, shared burrows of the psyche’s city - through memory, research & reflection.

The figurative work-it-self marked an important junction of my self-taught practice, here I used a specific technique of mark making; using charcoal, each line marked darker than the previous, without measurement, each asking the question, is this a truer line? I found that leaving the “false lines” un-erased, layered with watercolour & the figure gestured - questioning; mirrored the tangled nature of history, the rich flavours of folklore, and the profound complexity of our archetypical selves in tension with an unsteady world that occupies it.

A hand-made Zine, purposed both as as documentation of artistic research.& an archive of the works including early sketches, poetry, stream-of-consciousness “home-movies” that were part of the body of work.


the saffron fool II,
charcoal & watercolour on paper, 90 x 75 cm, 2021
the jackall woman I,
charcoal & watercolour on paper, 90 x 75 cm, 2021
the bullheaded man I,
charcoal & watercolour on paper, 90 x 75 cm, 2021
the bullheaded man II,
charcoal & watercolour on paper, 90 x 75 cm, 2021
the naga devi II,
charcoal & watercolour on paper, 90 x 75 cm, 2021
the saffron fool I,
charcoal & watercolour on paper, 90 x 75 cm, 2021
the saffron fool III,
charcoal & watercolour on paper, 90 x 75 cm, 2021
the naga devi I,
charcoal & watercolour on paper, 90 x 75 cm, 2021
the jacakall woman II,
charcoal & watercolour on paper, 90 x 75 cm, 2021
the bullheaded man II,
charcoal & watercolour on paper, 90 x 75 cm, 2021

Folk Tells Zine, 4 color print on paper, 8” x 10”, limited edition of 50
Folk Tells Zine, 4 color print on paper, 8” x 10”, limited edition of 50
Folk Tells Zine, 4 color print on paper, 8” x 10”, limited edition of 50

Install View: Trax Gallery, Ahangama, Sri Lanka - Feb-Mar 2023 (charcoal & watercolour - paintings & drawings + zine
Install View: Trax Gallery, Ahangama, Sri Lanka - Feb-Mar 2023 (charcoal & watercolour - paintings & drawings + zine)
Install View: Trax Gallery, Ahangama, Sri Lanka - Feb-Mar 2023 (charcoal & watercolour - paintings & drawings + zine)