S.H. Sarath

S.H. Sarath is among the sharpest social voices in Sri Lankan art. Working in monochrome pen and ink and in oil, he turns a satirist’s eye on the country’s public life, its gods and Buddhas, its temples, markets and villages set into scenes of pointed social criticism. He trained at the Government College of Fine Arts in Colombo between 1968 and 1973.

Across a long career his black-and-white drawings in particular have carried a moral and political charge rarely so directly stated in the island’s painting. He was honoured with the national title Kala Soori in 2017, and a retrospective of fifty years’ work followed.