Local demons in American setting
Rituals, symbolism and her roots: One of the paintings in Shyama’s ‘Room II’ series
Shyama Golden’s art is among the most exotic in the current collection at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) under the title ‘The Foreigners’. For they capture the experience of ‘being foreign everywhere’ as Shyama (Texan-born, roots in Sri Lanka and living in LA) puts it. This past week the artist has been in Sri Lanka to talk on her work “Rooms II’ at the MMCA.
Her canvases include the series ‘Yakkas: Everyday Exorcisms’ where the old demons of local mythology lurk in forests, cross wewas on Shyama’s shoulders, dance on junkyards and drive fast cars against the American outback with cacti and canyons (the world to which Shyama was born).
These include the fiery, gory and hairy Mahasona, the ‘great cemetery devil’ with a bear’s face or other yakkas. For Shyama these are a way of “looking at the hidden parts of my mind in the way that an anthropologist would study another culture and embracing both the frightening and funny aspects of Thovil in visualising the unknown things that exist in the mind.”
She has long been fascinated with the idea of how rituals access the subconscious and how ritual symbolism can reach parts of the psyche which are hard to access.
There is too this ambivalence about belonging – despite having “strong ties to both the US … and Sri Lanka.” However, “that’s a common feeling among immigrants (and) I think it’s one that many people can relate to indirectly, as the modern world makes us all feel a bit out of place in one way or another.” Mahasona rides, in another portrait, a horse in a ranch decorated with gok-kola.
Shyama Golden
Shyama lives with her husband Paul Trillo and their dog Pepper. Her studio is in her home in Mount Washington which “in a strange way really reminds (her) of Sri Lanka because of the thriving plant life and hot weather.” She had spent some sporadic childhood periods in Sri Lanka, where she shared a bedroom with a cousin and dug up rare old books in the darkish Modern Book Company shop in Nugegoda owned by her uncle.
Shyama’s other work include the series ‘We are Not Alone’. Says Shyama “The title We are Not Alone has multiple meanings. It refers to our interconnectedness as thinking creatures living on a planet together. It refers to people of colour and under-represented genders in the US, feeling like the “other” when the demographics and histories of the world would tell you otherwise.
“In the canon of Western art we are often used as props, when shown at all, but here, we are centred and represent a multitude of ways of being. It refers to my belief that there is likely intelligent life in other solar systems, though I wonder if they too, are plagued with the level of tribalism, ethno-nationalism, wilful ignorance and greed that’s destroying our own planet. It also refers to the kind of strength in numbers that is necessary to course correct this kind of self-destruction.”
Having started out as a graphic designer Shyama did not come out as an artist until she felt there were enough opportunities.
She says her art has “literally connected (her) through the recognition of this show and it means a lot to have the work selected by MMCA Sri Lanka.”
“My work is very solitary so I don’t know for sure if it’s connecting with anyone other than myself until I have an exhibition so having people from the island appreciate the work feels like it’s reaching the most important audience to me.”
The MMCA’s The Foreigners exhibition, featuring 15 artists, continues until October 22.
| MMCA takes local art to London | |
| The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka (MMCA Sri Lanka) will present a specially curated selection of artworks by Sri Lankan artists in London this October. Happening alongside London’s Frieze Week (October 11-15), this event will feature a selection of video works from the MMCA Sri Lanka’s current exhibition titled ‘The Foreigners’ and will be followed by a panel discussion. The screenings from ‘The Foreigners’ will include works by Dinelka Liyanage, Hania Luthufi, Imaad Majeed, Nina Mangalanayagam and Sumudi Suraweera. It will be followed by a conversation between Sharmini Pereira, Chief Curator and Sandev Handy, Curator at the MMCA Sri Lanka and artists Nina Mangalanayagam and Reginald S. Aloysius, led by the UK-based curator, writer and researcher Hammad Nasar. The event will be held on October 12 in partnership with The Photographers’ Gallery London—a globally recognised museum which hosts the annual Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize. Speaking about the event, Handy said, “Taking a part of ‘The Foreigners’ to London, especially during Frieze week, is significant because of the way in which the works in the exhibition speak to the entangled experiences of foreignness; a subject at the forefront of discussions on migration, climate, and asylum across the world.” |
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