We’re delighted to announce our support for and sale of original art by Sri Lankan artist @minalnaomi. Minal is a mixed media artist working across painting, digital art, and textiles. 

 

She works with themes of identity, justice, politics, and freedom of expression. Her work explores ethnic, religious, and linguistic complexities as well as her mixed heritage. 

 

Minal’s family consists of Sinhala, Burgher, and Tamil roots. She was also raised by journalists and media professionals.

 

Minal is the ambassador for the @thefearlesscollective. Here, she is part of a feminist artist collective that paints murals across South Asia and beyond. This effort raises the visibility of misrepresented communities and their lives on the streets.

 

Minal starts our first collaboration by exploring postcolonial identity and multiculturalism. She depicts her subjects using their limited amount of accessible portrait photographs. 

 

The richness of the characters is a nod towards the diverse and colourful history of the island. 

 

The first series looks at an unknown Tamil woman documented in the 1890s. As befit the time, there is no identification of the lady apart from signs that she had status in society. Her status is clear from the jewellery she wears.

 

Minal's work here questions the colonial gaze which often exoticised its subjects. She explores what other aspects of the woman's personality there might be. She also asks what different aspects of the self exist and the range of identities we all inhabit.

 

Her second series engages with her granduncle Tambimuttu. ‘Tambi’ was a poet, editor, writer, and critic. 

 

Minal’s journey into exploring identity through postcolonial history - and vice versa - began with him.

 

After researching his work at the British Library, she realised they shared many similarities, even though they had never met. He had very similar questions of identity and what it meant to be Sri Lankan, or Ceylonese, at the time.

 

Minal’s third series depicts the legendary architect Minnette de Silva. Minette was Sri Lanka’s first female architect and the first woman to be registered at the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) in London.

 

Minnette introduced a modern architectural style to Sri Lanka and brought a new approach to building. Unfortunately, as she was a woman’s in a man’s world, she was never recognised for her work in her lifetime.

 

She was often referred to in her relationships with famous architect Le Corbusier. But there is a renewed interest in her work and a revival of it in Sri Lanka at the moment.

 

This third series continues Minal’s exploration of how Sri Lankans, or Ceylonese, leaned into the way Western people saw them as exotic. Minnette always wore colourful saris, with scarves draped over her head and often with a large flower in her hair.

 

These pictures explore the reality of South Asians who migrated to the United Kingdom. They often played into the role of the exotic and even benefitted from it. They learned to navigate a society that was keen to define them on that society’s own terms. 

 

The last picture of Minal’s art contribution to Apay Lanka is Sri Lankan activist Richard de Soyza. 

 

Richard was a journalist, writer, playwright, actor, poet, and activist who was killed in the midst of political upheaval in 1990. 

 

As Minal comes from a family of journalists and media professionals, Richard is an inspiration. He was born into a privileged, multiracial family and he fought against inequality and injustice in society. 

 

Through this body of work, Minal reflects on the brilliant voices Sri Lanka has had in its colourful but turbulent past. She certainly is a voice for the future.