“He translates a three-dimensional thing into a two-dimensional print – as if he is bent on disembodying an uncomfortable memory or a past or may be a present.” – Jagath Weerasinghe

Buddhika Nakandala is a visual artist, printmaker, graphic designer and art teacher born in Ampara, who received his initial education in art at the University of Visual and Performing Arts in Colombo. Nakandala’s work is mainly related to printmaking, which is an attempt to create aesthetically pleasing and socio-culturally conscious work via printing machines.

Nakandala made a conscious decision to drop out of university in 2008, despite having completed the necessary coursework and assessments. His intention was to discover printmaking on his terms, trusting his own intuition with regards to the medium. He has exhibited work across Sri Lanka at a solo exhibition in 2017, as well as several group exhibitions. Since 2016 Nakandala has been a member of the Theertha Artists’ Collective, and has provided his artistic support to several local exhibitions and art events such as the Theertha Performance Platform, COLOMBOSCOPE and the Colombo Art Biennale. Nakandala currently lives in Mathugama, is following the Masters Class in Philosophy at the Theertha School of Art, and volunteers as an art teacher for children with special needs at the Baduraliya Primary School.

Nakandala entered the contemporary art scene of Sri Lanka with a vision to create art and prints using his own printing machine. He currently works with a printing machine he built himself using metal shafts and rods collected from Galwala in Maradana, which is a culmination of an idea he had for several years. According to artist Jagath Weerasinghe, by this innovative attempt at designing and controlling the medium through which his art is produced, Nakandala displays a “self-fulfilment and self-education proven to be a great resource” for an artist of this new generation in Sri Lanka. At his first solo exhibition, “Imprint in Print” held in 2017 at the Theertha Red Dot Gallery, Nakandala exhibited several prints that were created using his own printing machine, depicting this self-made nature of his personality as an artist. His work is recognized as having an innate raw and rough quality defined by the struggles he underwent as an emerging artist during the early 2000s, trying to create a context and identity for himself as an independent artist. His art depicts the liminal space he embodies as a contemporary Sri Lankan artist based outside Colombo, with an unconventional attitude towards visual art and a drive to redefine the parameters of the discipline itself. Nakandala derives most of his inspiration from lived experiences, especially of the civil war and day-to-day interactions with Sri Lankan society.

Nakandala’s prints are mostly monochromatic, with a three-dimensional object such as a branch from a tree or an undergarment pressed on to the canvas playing with the various shades and extents of a single colour. Weerasinghe describes his method as follows: “the exact method he had used is arranging an underwear – men’s or women’s – on a thickly pigmented paper and then placing another paper, as if covering a secret, on top and pressing the sandwiched plants and undergarments through the printing machine.” He thereby transforms a three-dimensional object into a two-dimensional one on his canvas. This method, as much as the product in itself, is unique as it plays with the idea of memory as a crucial aspect of human life. Drawing from lived experiences, Nakandala’s methodology for creating art is indicative of the urge in humans to erase or suppress certain memories from our past. The politics of using undergarments is also significant here, as they are symbolic of secrecy (as Weerasinghe says) as well as the human body and sexuality, which are socio-culturally defined. They also serve the purpose of making a statement about erotic pleasure and the pain and longing associated with acts of sex and sexuality.

Nakandala’s work indicates a preoccupation with foliage as material; branches, twigs and leaves are pressed alongside the undergarments, his primary point of reference, thus far. While the structure of the foliage depicts the structures of society and the frameworks that prescribe human experiences, the undergarments layer the expression with their signification of sexuality and the erotic. Foliage presented in the form of shrubbery can be connected to the scattered histories and belongings of Sri Lankans during the civil war that ended in 2009, which Nakandala personally witnessed having lived and grown up in the Eastern Province.

Nakandala is also known for titling his paintings with distinct, exotic and vernacular names that stand out as both fixed and offbeat, which in turn, lends itself to his struggle for authenticity of practice, approach and expression.