Hema Shironi (b. 1991, Sri Lanka) is a multidisciplinary artist who lives in Colombo. She completed her BFA (2014) from the Ramanathan Fine Arts Academy, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka and MFA (2019) at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. Her wide-ranging artistic practice combines embroidery, mythological imagery, bricolage, and installation to inquire concepts of cultural identity. Her work is deeply rooted in observance of the history of colonisation, civil war, displacement and migration, which she highlights through personal stories and experiences of living in Sri Lanka. As a child, her family often moved from one place to another and she eventually found herself questioning the bonds that communities and individuals make. Her work is driven by the nostalgia of the numerous places she has called home and how each community belonging to those places grapples with concerns of language, culture, memory, myth, gender and equality.
Shironi held her solo show “Rented Shadow and Neighbors”, at Saskia Fernando Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka (2021). Some of her selected group exhibitions include “small world” curated by Freya Chou, Brian Kuan Wood and Reem Shahid, Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Taiwan (2023); “The Foreigners” curated by Sandev Handy and Sharmini Pereira, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka, (2023); “Critical Zones, curated by Bruno Latour, Peter Weilbel, Martin Guinard and Bettina Korintenberg, ZKM, Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Sri Lanka (2022) and at Colomboscope, Sri Lanka (2019 and 2022).
