The Sixth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

148 The One Year Drawing Project ‘The One Year Drawing Project’ is an artist book commissioned by the imprint Raking Leaves and involving the Sri Lankan artists Muhanned Cader, Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan, Chandraguptha Thenuwara and Jagath Weerasinghe. 1 Consisting of 208 individual drawings, this suite of works is one of the most fascinating, revealing and significant artistic undertakings produced in Sri Lanka. These are senior practitioners who have made distinct contributions to Sri Lanka’s burgeoning contemporary art scene through teaching, curating, art criticism, design and anti-war activism. The project began in May 2005, with each of the four artists creating one drawing which was then posted to one of the others. On receiving a drawing, each artist then produced another and sent this on. In this way, the body of drawings was made, exchanged, scrutinised, added to and developed, forming a group of original art works reflecting on an array of subject matter. As Raking Leaves founder and curator Sharmini Pereira describes it: For each of the participating artists drawing represents an indispensable investigative tool. Used as a reflective process, practised vehemently, privately and repeatedly, their drawing practices occupy a much over- looked side of contemporary Sri Lankan art. What binds them in this respect is their use of drawing as a visual short hand for scrutinising a range of subjects from popular culture to current affairs through the idiom of mark making and figuration. 2 The artists’ studios are located across Sri Lanka, from Jaffna in the north to the outer suburbs of the capital, Colombo, on the south-west coast. Based on a process of exchange, what is described in the title as a ‘one-year’ project in fact took two and a half years, ending in October 2007. The optimism of this exchange continued a dialogue and mode of cooperation, characterised by persistence, which was undertaken against a backdrop of the civil war that began in the early 1980s. Importantly, the four artists conducted this project with care, understanding the legacy of years of ethnic violence and despite their different ethnicities. The extended completion time was, in part, due to ongoing violence and instability (concentrated in the north and east and, periodically, in the capital), which inevitably affected daily life. As Pereira notes: Each of the artists brings his own approach, style and sensibility to the project. Cader’s drawings are characterised by the repeated use of a tightly drawn abstract yet whimsical form whose changing persona becomes a leitmotif throughout the project. Shanaathanan uses the male nude figure to explore experiences of human suffering, loss and dislocation. Thenuwara’s drawings move between figuration and abstraction, often using the iconography of camouflage — a symbol of military presence — to reflect on the conflict ridden situation in Sri Lanka. While Weerasinghe creates expressive, fervently composed drawings that combine and overlay political satire with the anxiety of the individual. 3 Like the surrealists’ use of the ‘exquisite corpse’ technique, ‘The One Year Drawing Project’ exploits its method’s openness to accident and interruption, the absurd and the workings of the subconscious. Exquisite corpse (in French cadavre exquis ) was based on an old parlour game called Consequences, in which players would, in turn, write a sentence or phrase on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal the writing, and pass it to the next player for a further contribution. The unexpected and playful nature of this game appealed to André Breton and his surrealist colleagues, and they adapted it to drawing. A suite of hybrid images was soon produced, the first of which was published in the journal La Révolution Surrealiste , in October 1927. 4 ‘The One Year Drawing Project’ differs from the surrealist endeavour in that the works are individually signed and can be followed as a linear sequence. The project also includes a timeline compiled from each artist’s contributions, ranging from personal events through to political incidents. Like the exquisite corpse, however, which began after World War One, this suite of drawings uses elements of free association and play in response to an atmosphere of political and military violence, and mobilises the ability of the subconscious to express deeply personal responses. Suhanya Raffel Endnotes 1 Raking Leaves is an independent publisher of contemporary artist book projects, established in 2006 by the curator Sharmini Pereira. 2 Sharmini Pereira, in material sent to the author, May 2007. 3 Didactic material produced by Raking Leaves for presentation of ‘The One Year Drawing Project’, 21 August – 1 November 2009, at the Devi Art Foundation, Gurgaon, India. 4 See William S Rubin, Dada and Surrealist Art , Museum of Modern Art, Harry N Abrams Inc., New York, 1968. The One Year Drawing Project Muhanned Cader Sri Lanka b.1966 Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan Sri Lanka b.1969 Chandraguptha Thenuwara Sri Lanka b.1960 Jagath Weerasinghe Sri Lanka b.1954 The One Year Drawing Project May 2005-October 2007 2005–07 Pencil, synthetic polymer paint, pen and gouache on paper / 187 sheets: 29 x 21cm (each) / 21 sheets: 21 x 29cm (each) / The Lekha and Anupam Poddar Collection