Shanali Perera is a contemporary artist, educator, author and retired clinician, living with the rare illness Vasculitis. She developed Vasculitis (inflammation of blood vessels), an autoimmune condition that came on during her specialist training in Rheumatology, forcing her to quit her clinical career.

‘I control what I create . . .’ Says Shanali. Inspired by life rhythm and flow, her canvases were an outlet to transform her lived experience into a more meaningful way of living as she shifted roles from clinician to patient to becoming a person again. The artistic expression allowed her to express and symbolize feelings about her illness. Drawing what her pain looked like helped her to understand how she perceived her pain and how it impacted her lifestyle. Her creative response reflects what living with illness looks like, feels like as a bodily experience. A visual narrative portraying an honest representation of her relationship with illness. She uses the power of colour to expose her invisible world. She was the artist for two creative campaigns around vasculitis and rare illness, exhibited her work online and is in the process of publishing her first book.

Her abstract expressions of ‘the embodied invisible’ raise awareness, reduce stereotyping, offer solutions to health challenges, and help understand pain, illness visually. She hopes her canvases connects with you and help bridge the gap between the biomedical focus of disease and the human focus of illness. As well as show you how art can be used as a tool for self-management of long-term illnesses.

Shanali was born in Sri Lanka. She studied Medicine at the University of the West Indies. Having lived in India and the Caribbean, she currently divides her time between Manchester, UK and Colombo, Sri Lanka. She works across intersections of art, health, medical education, and patient support.