In the wake of the crisis engulfing Sri Lanka, Saskia Fernando Gallery in Colombo will bring works by one of the country's most prominent political artists, Chandraguptha Thenuwara to Frieze London later this year. 

At Frieze (12-16 October), the gallery will present Covert Drawings, a series of ink on paper works created alongside the artist's welded metal installation titled Covert, which is on show at the European Cultural Centre in Venice for the duration of this year's Biennale (until 27 November). Thenuwara created the 2m-tall sculpture by making line drawings, combining motifs such as lotus leaves and guns, that were then welded onto a hollow drum.

Covert was unveiled in April this year as the political and economic crisis in Sri Lanka was deepening. 

In 1997, Thenuwara began presenting "memorial exhibitions", which are shown on 23 July every year to commemorate "Black July", a series of Anti-Tamil pogroms that erupted in Sri Lanka in July of 1983. He appropriated the camouflaged barrels seen at security checkpoints for his Barrelism series, which he started in 1997.

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