- 2000 Master of Fine Arts (Painting), University of Delhi, India
- 1998 Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting), University of Delhi, India
T. Shanaathanan has been a Lecturer in Art History at the Department of Fine Arts of the University of Jaffna since 2000. His art practice includes drawing, painting, mixed media, and installation work. He currently resides in Jaffna, Sri Lanka.
Shanaathanan’s works explore the relationship between self and mental/geographical locations by drawing a parallel between human anatomy and cartography of different kinds.
His landscapes are autobiographical, they represent landscapes of memory, trying to (re)locate the self within a place known as “home.” At the same time his collages and “tailored” maps mirror the “collaged” character of society at large and the surreal life experience of the present, in which dispersal, displacement, and exile have made earlier categories of identity and belonging based on nationality, geographical territory, and collective history meaningless.
Untitled I og II
Mixed media on paper. 2004. 75 x 56 cm (I). 56 x 75 cm (II). Photo: Thushantha Rathnayake.
