Akara Contemporary presents, Solitary Gardens, which depicts an unsettling sense of longing simmers in the lush compositions of Arjuna Gunarathne’s work. His family, neighbours and occasionally stories of co-immigrants find refuge in these fantastical leafy gardens and dense groves. Green becomes a surrogate for home, sometimes growing into domestic spaces and the crevices of the mind. The foliage envelopes his protagonists like it was a warm hug, a space to hide, weep and probably heal. They sit, are hard at work, lost in thought or exploring like they were looking for something in these milieus. That these British pleasure gardens may well have residues of home in the form of flora from colonial Sri Lanka (where Gunarathne hails from) offers a distant, but possible trace of home. He also actively seeks these spaces of solitude and suspension, rest and recuperation in the bustle of the British metropolis, its tall, glass towers; brick facades and wet, sunless days.
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