Akka

Children of Refugees

Same Ages, Different Times

Two Beauties

Hidden Realities

My art has always revolved around my conflicting identities, directly referencing scenes from the Sri Lankan civil war and certain aspects of being in the diaspora as a first-generation British-Tamil. Growing up my parents always made sure that my brother and I were aware of why we are here in the United Kingdom and not in the Tamil homeland. In our household, the Tamil radio and news channel constantly play in the background. As a young Tamil activist, I keenly attend protests, read, and discuss the Tamil struggle. 

Attending the Westminster protests in 2009 during the final stages of the civil war was a very vivid memory for me. I left school in my uniform to attend the protests with my family, shouting “NO JUSTICE NO PEACE!’. Around the age of 8, I understood what was happening in Sri Lanka and I was furious, wanting it had to stop.

I reflect on my memories from my last visit to my Tamil homeland, three years after the war had ended. Sri Lanka went through a long 26 -year civil war from 1983 until 2009, between the minority ethnic group, the Tamils, and Sri Lankan Government. This event has had a huge impact on me and my practice. My practice is predominantly using oil, paint and film. I am constantly battling with positioning political themes within my paintings and considering how to maintain these ideas in such a way that is not didactic. As a painter, this allows me to express and explore my identity with oil paint without feeling pressure of creating paintings so informative. With film, I’m visually able to inform issues clearly on what’s happening in Sri Lanka in a didactic form. 

The recent elections, disappearances of missing people, and discrimination of Tamils are strong, ongoing human rights violations that I continue to address in my work. I am interested in the challenge of involving politics into paintings, and provoke a political issue in my mediums. The surface of the canvas explores a field of abstraction but remains anchored by a strong narrative and figurative elements. The themes of migration and displacement I explore become a personal route of exploration.

I decided to avoid using the colour, orange in my work. The Sri Lankan government uses the colour, orange on their flag to represent the minority ethnic group, the Tamils, which is just a small stripe on their flag. As a Tamil, I refuse to be identified as Sri Lankan nor claim the Sri Lankan flag as my own, while the government has killed and continues to persecute our people. The only flag that represents us Tamils is the Tamil Tiger flag. This flag consists of two main colours: red and yellow. I most often use these colours in my paintings to pay homage to the Tamil people. Since my methodology is in avoiding the use of orange, if I come across the colour when mixing yellow and red I then layer it with other colours. It feels as though I am recognizing and rebelling against who the Sri Lankan government wants us to be.

My paintings are memories and information that I’ve gathered from Eelam. It depicts the distortion of memory as it is never really clear, in the same sense as history and its many layers that should never be forgotten. Variances in the opacity of paint and layering conveys the visual language of communicating with memories. Each memory morphs and adapts to a new information learnt. These layers of memories and reflection find their direct equivalents in the layering of the constructed image, connecting how memories work.

Political landscapes occur in my work. In Sivappu Kadal, I feel political landscapes are demonstrating the symbolic meaning of migration and translating to refugees. Political landscapes strike me as important and repetitive in media and imagery. The ocean itself is very well known as a political landscape, as refugees escape their war-torn homelands on boats. 

Product of Refugees, is a personal portrait of my brother and I. I subtly add slight facial structures, but no facial features in the painting to make it more universal. I feel as though viewers from the diaspora can connect to it. I also invite the white gaze into the discussion of the painting and depict the resistance. The figures gazing at the viewer. The resistance giving soft power to the piece.

I am Eelam Tamil and deny being identified as a Sri Lankan. I will always continue to express and provoke the Tamil Struggle in my art.  

About Thirsika Jeyapalan

Born and raised in London, England, Thirsika (she/her) , 22, graduated from Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton in 2020 with a BA in Fine Art. She worked closely with the Tamil Information Centre for the Tamils of Lanka exhibition in May 2019 to mark 10 years of Tamil Genocide. She admires and draws inspiration from Frida Kahlo’s life and work  (and has a tattoo of Frida on her arm, too). Thirsika lived in Stuttgart, Germany for 6 months in 2019 to do her semester exchange at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart. She loves to travel on trains across Europe and dreams of being in a Studio Ghibli film.