Some Of Our Collection
You’d Love
“...you enter into the virtual world of rainforests, far away from the hustle bustle of modern cities. The canvases come alive when light peeking through the thick canopy of trees seems to play hide and seek, and trumpeting elephants, chirpy macaws, hovering hummingbirds and fluttering butterflies greet you through the vibrant flora and fauna of the forests. One cannot help but get transported to the world of tranquillity and hear the myriad sounds of nature, while witnessing nature in all its glorious colours. For Senanayake’s works are a true representation of nature in its vibrancy and colours, even though the flora and fauna may have been juxtaposed from different parts of the forests, to create balance and harmony on the canvas.” – Nidhi Chawla
'One of the pioneers in a more vital form of painting than that based on Royal Academy standards of taste.'
“My approach to the theme [of trauma] is based on my personal and social experiences and my attempt to re-conceptualize that experience through the language of painting. My work is governed by two main events: one is my childhood memories of the civil war and the terrorism that happened in Sri Lanka in 1988-89, and since 1979 respectively, and the second is the death of the Father (my own).” – Dumith Kulasekara
“I got bruised the other day at Weerasinghe’s studio. He was showing the paintings that constitute his latest exhibition, Decorated. One in particular struck me. Though directed to other canvases by Weerasinghe, some of them also compelling, I kept coming back to it. Take in the image: it depicts a sinister man in camouflage, a soldier, against an orange ‘background.’ Upon returning home, I couldn’t get my mind off it.” – Sanjana Hattotuwa for Groundviews
‘The moving spirit of the ’43 Group’
‘The maverick of the 43 Group’
“Art imitates, sublimates, and exalts life, freeing the vision from anecdote and offering its radiant peace to all who would receive it.”
“In Pothupitiye’s work titled ‘Degree Holder’, one sees a map being transformed into an image of a man wearing a graduation robe, hat and necktie. All these symbols work in unison to mock the European system of education that was set up in Sri Lanka, and continues to this date. This imposition, in the artist’s view, created a dissonance for the locals, alienating them from their own cultural practices and indigenous wisdom.” – Chintan Girish Modi
“At times art cannot be fully understood or appreciated unless an account is taken of certain fundamental artists. Gamvasi Senarath Fernando was one of them. In most of his works the three letters G.S.F. was endorsed and was familiar and known to every art lover. Beside being the chief exponent of the type of painting known as ‘picturesque’ he was responsible for removing the deeply rooted prejudice which insisted that the function of art was to represent man since by its nature art was ‘the work of man’.” – Tissa Hewavitarana
‘Sapumal – the flower that never blossoms in full but opens on partially’
"His understanding of the latest intellectual and artistic currents of the day is combined with a great feeling for his country and a special insight into his heritage and way of life. It is this duality of past and present which makes his work so unique, rendering it classical and modern, traditional yet at the same time contemporary. To see Sri Lanka through Kirinde’s eyes is to dip into a repository of fact, folklore and feeling, enriched by brilliant colour and enhanced by exquisite line.”
Neville sometimes left the faces blank in a painting. When asked why he did so he replied: “Because I don’t know who they are.” He didn’t paint specific people. The figures could be of any Sri Lankan but depicted so viewers could recognize certain feelings in human relationships in the context of the land to which they belong.
“...as O’Rourke quotes: “Can an artistic intervention truly bring about an unforeseen way of thinking…Can an absurd act provoke a transgression that makes you abandon the standard assumptions on the sources of conflict? Can those acts bring about the possibility of change? While these questions remain to be answered, Thalawatta’s practice does offer alternative ways of perceiving oneself in a post-conflict city, not through overt acts, but through nuanced gestures; by embodying experiences and remaining porous to the urban environment around him.” – Jyoti Dhar
“His painting readily creates in us an immediate sense of the general. The work is about a particular subject, but the sensation is always a general one – about life, about one’s own experience. It is like reading, where we use the test to make new experiences and not only for literal interpretation. With his work, we achieve a kind of single understanding, and single meaning. We are aware, as Sartre has said, that “man is universal singular.” – Prof. S.B. Dissanayake
“...this is, without doubt, a record of the hardship...and suffering of war, it is superseded by its being a record of resilience and adaptability. It’s a resistance to passive victimhood, if you like.” – Mark Rappolt
“It is through drawing that he strives to formulate a visual language combined with signs and symbols observed in the objects and materials of everyday. Typically many of the forms in his work are rooted in abstraction that comes from an observation of shapes, forms and colours in nature.” - Mariah Lookman
“Calamities and atrocities is a theme which can be expressed in diverse ways. Chaotic arrangement of materials in Pushpakumara’s way is, perhaps, appropriate to represent the theme graphically. The exhibition is marked for its sheer use of discarded hardware materials in installation art. However, a significant aspect of his use of material is the management of space and redefining.” – Ranga Chandraratne
“I don’t think I am criticizing society, only observing it. I am observing how the mechanisms of the market economy are transforming age-old cultural concepts into easily saleable commodities. The Buddha is one such concept that is transformed by the market, the politics of power and capital, and at the end is deprived of style and identity.” – Bandu Manamperi