Muhanned Cader is a Sri Lankan artist born and raised in Colombo. As a student Cader showed an interest in art during his early years, and later went on to receive a formal art education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the late 1990s. Cader is recognized by Josephine Breese as an artist that belongs to a distinct school of thought in the contemporary art scene in the country due to his “fascination with abstraction”. He uses abstract motifs and imagery that may not directly depict his take on socio-cultural and political aspects of human existence, but could yield a multiplicity of meanings. Due to his ability to communicate universally through abstraction Cader has come to occupy a space of profundity and repute in Sri Lanka as well as overseas. He has exhibited in the US, UK, Australia, India, Singapore, Pakistan as well as Bangladesh on various artistic platforms since the early 1990s. He is also the first artist from the contemporary art scene of Sri Lanka to have had one of his work, “Nightscapes – Ocean, River and Sea” represented at a renowned Christie’s New York auction. Cader received the prestigious “Kala Suri” award presented by the Government of Sri Lanka in 2005, and the Bunka Award given by the Japan Sri Lanka Friendship Cultural Fund in 2004. He has taught at the Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts in Colombo and has been a visiting lecturer at the Ramanathan Academy of Fine Arts located at the University of Jaffna. He currently divides his time between Colombo, Sri Lanka and Oxford, UK.

Cader refers to his art as a representation of “true politics”, as he aspires to remove obvious political associations or commentary from his work. However, the abstract shapes and geometric variations he uses on the canvas can invite and inspire readings about power. His use of such uncommon and unique formats prevents the viewer from seeing the full scene, creating the mindspace for “true politics” to emerge as a visual metaphor. For his solo exhibition Glueandstick held in 2017 at the Barefoot Gallery, Cader revived the cut-out technique used by Henri Matisse, using glossy and colourful cutouts from magazines such as the National Geographic to create high quality digital prints that make a commentary on environmental degradation as well as the negative repercussions caused by the political world such as loss of habitat and human displacement. Mariah Lookman, curator of the exhibition claimed that the works take Cader further in his journey of constructing an artistic identity for himself as he explores “bad politics” alongside “true politics” through visual metaphor associated with the slowly deteriorating wildlife and natural beauty of Sri Lanka. The abstract pieces from magazines make a statement by themselves: “these abstract compositions reflect Muhanned’s visual system of forms that he has been using to critique bogus ideas of development seen in his recent exhibitions, and become more pertinent in the present time of massive political change,” said Lookman. His previous exhibitions such as Island (2016) and Jungle Tide (2015) also dealt with the natural world and the rapid changes happening in Sri Lanka in terms of urban development promoted under the label of progress.