Chandraguptha Thenuwara is a senior Lecturer at the University of the Visual and Performing Arts, Colombo. He is also the Director of the Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts which he founded in 1993. Chandraguptha Thenuwara has exhibited widely in Colombo, Moscow, Vienna, London Melbourne, Liverpool, Falkirk, New Delhi, Dhaka, Fukuoka, New York, Helsinki and Paris. His works are also included in the collections of the Queensland Art Gallery Australia, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum Japan, John Moore's University Art Collection Liverpool and the Fine Arts Museum of Udmurtia, Izhevsk, Russia as well as public monuments in Colombo. Chandraguptha Thenuwara is a leading Sri Lankan artist whose work focuses on issues surrounding the impact of war in Sri Lanka. In response to this overwhelming crisis Thenuwara has devised his own stylistic formulation, which he has called 'Barrelism'.

"Wall"Installation, mixed media

War is over. Peace has to come. Thirty years. It is a long period. Some haven't seen a world without war. There was a time that Sri Lanka was equal to Paradise. Only few people saw and lived in that Paradise and the numbers are becoming lesser and lesser. It is just a memory. For some people that paradise is totally lost. But we do not have to think like this. There are things that we have to overcome. Change of history in a second. There are so many seconds behind us. There are memories good and bad. These memories stand in front of us as a gigantic wall. Obstructions..! Destructions ! Constructions ! We made this wall. We are all responsible for constructing this wall.

Walls are a prominent and dominant feature in the post-open economy of Sri Lanka. Walls become a support for communication too. Walls hold posters with words and images, advertising and political campaigns, public opinions and so on. Due to the war various walls rose within our society. Among those walls are Media walls, ideological walls, misunderstanding walls, conspiracy walls, memorial walls, protective walls, prison walls, hiding walls and more.

Dreams, wishes, hopes, deaths, corruption, miss-use of power, violence, terror, harassments, abuse of men, women, children, goodwill, faith, nostalgia, heritage, faith, greediness, buying and selling, lies, promises, mistrust, hate, love, everything is there. All we need is PEACE. It has to be a real Peace. How can we achieve this? How we can imagine it? So end of war is not a Peace. There are many things to be done. They are under the wall. They are on the wall. They are behind the wall. They are within the wall. They are between the walls.

Imagining Peace is for us is to look to understand the Wall and deal with social-political-cultural issues. It helps us to overcome matters with the wall and make Sri Lanka Peaceful again. Hope never dies.

Names of the Artists:
Chandraguptha Thenuwara
Chammika Jayawardena
Kusal Gunasekara
Sajeewani Hewawitharana
Anusha Gajaweera