Invitation to Preview
An Exhibition of Paintings and Installations
by
Kingsley Gunatillake
Year Planner
03 April 2007
5pm to 7 pm
at the Lional Wendt Gallery
Exhibition will remain open from 4th to 5th April 2007
Gallery hours from 10 am to 7 pm
The year planner is all about looking at the remnants of a war that has been threatening peace while claiming many lives. It is also about taking a position against the war and its consequences.
From Year Planner 1998For the visual effort of writing down the year planner, I had to bring down colors and material into an order. But the year planner could not be arranged according to my will. But then who creates my/our year planner?
Who ever is the creator, I am compelled to intervene. However, the forms, placements and ordering of the year planner were not done solely by me. They represent certain socio-political processes that are superimposed on me. These are the results of victimization to ethnic violence and terrorism.
I am compelled to comprehend this situation and come to terms with the time and space; I am compelled to reinterpret the shattered stuff, ruins and shapes; to reorganize these burned components. I can give these objects sensations and a direction. And also, I am able to oppose the misery that comes after the explosions.
If someone argues that within my context, this order is merely a pile of burned objects that provides some symbolic meaning, I am able to bear it.
Since it does not appear in front of you as a mirror, if someone sees it as a graph or a projection, I will put up with it; I will tolerate it.
But who takes the responsibility of reorganizing the time and space in order to recover from this barbarism?
Kingsley Gunatillake 2007