Jasmine Nilani Joseph
Sri Lanka
I began exploring the visual form of ink drawings to express my own experience of displacement that made me lose my home in Jaffna.
Bio
Jasmine Nilani Joseph is a visual artist from Jaffna, whose work focuses on the experiences of displacement, militarization, and the lived histories of Northern Sri Lanka which experienced 30 years of armed conflict in recent history. Often beginning with field research and documenting from communal memory, Nilani’s drawing series dwell on geographic details, displaced homes and how security structures come to denote militarization of the domestic sphere and the natural world.
Featured here are her signature landscape line drawings and her latest interactive installation ‘Yall Jewellery Boxes,’ which combines her signature line drawings with jewellery boxes used by women to store their bangles.
Full Artist Statement
“After completing the Bachelor’s degree in Art & Design in the year 2015, I began exploring the visual form of ink drawings in order to express my personal concerns in art.
My drawings are moving images in a vertical line as barricades with parts, canes of coconut and Palmyra trees, fence made of barbed wire, architectural constructions and the elements of the landscapes and seascapes. The medium I use for my drawings (Rotring pen an Art Paper) support for the good quality of the works and the archiving.
Over my short artistic career, I have had the opportunity to participate and exhibit my work at prominent forums including galleries in Sri Lanka, the serendipity arts festival for the Young Subcontinent Project (India in 2017), the Dharka art summit (Bangladesh 2017) and the Colomboscope arts festival(Sri Lanka 2019). These experiences have come to sharpen my artistic thoughts and practice.
In contemporary art the drawing is moving forward in a new trend as passing its traditional boarder and the reason of this advancement is, change of media, themes and strategy. Therefore I have participated in an artist residency (Pepper House Residency of Kochi Biennale to experiment and extend the ideas with different mediums and keep searching to apply some more residencies. As an artist I take part in workshops, seminars, conferences, talks etc.”
