“Not many Sri Lankan painters dared to venture completely beyond the artistic norms in search of their own style, and in this regard, Sekara was a one-of-a-kind painter whom Sri Lanka should feel lucky to have had.

Just like how he reached audiences with a unique style of song that was rather uncommon for that time, he did the same with his paintings, which were enriched with lines of different colours and shapes, which culminate in a meaningful artistic expression when combined.” Chandana Ranaweera

Mahagama Sekera was unique. It would be more accurate to say that he was a gift to the arts than to say he was a gifted artist. There seems to be no field he could not excel in if he would try. Sekera’s contributions span across poetry, prose, cinema, translation, design, illustration, painting, and academia. To bring an example of the man’s range, he wrote the highly regarded Sinhala novel Thun Man Handiya. Then he went on to write a screenplay out of the novel, direct a critically acclaimed movie from it, create all the posters and cartoons used as promotional material for the film, and design all the batik and embroidery used in costumes.

Sekera received his visual art education from the Government College of Fine Arts. While he studied under several artists influenced by the 43 Group, he was never keen about landscape or portrait painting. His initial interest was in presenting traditional symbols in novel form. After he visited the United States and Europe, Sekera added elements of modernism to his craft. Art historian Sirinimal Lakdusinghe places Sekera in the same category as Indian artists Jamini Roy and Amrita Sher-Gil: South Asian artists who sought to develop a distinct native style of art, incorporating elements of traditional art forms and the French realist movement.

Sekera’s style is characterized by a combination of lines of different colours, combined with symbolic shapes and figures. He used paint made from traditional materials and sometimes replaced his paintbrush with bombu (Symplocos cochinchinensis) sticks. His color palette was not fixed; some of his paintings were full of vibrant colors, while others had darker shades. He painted over 100 paintings throughout his life in various media. Sadly, most of them are not currently available.

Sekera’s book cover designs give us a better opportunity today to observe his brilliance in visual art. During his day, there developed a trend to fill book covers with meaningless sketches. Sekera’s cover designs are simple sketches that use a few lines, shapes, and colors to provide a summary of the book. He designed the covers for his own books (together with special fonts used for the titles) and many covers for esteemed authors of his day, including Martin Wickramasinghe, Ediriweera Sarachchandra, and K. Jayathilaka.

Despite the richness and originality of Sekera’s paintings, they have not received the institutional recognition they deserve. Unlike his widely acclaimed literary endeavors, his visual art remains underrepresented in galleries and public collections. This absence highlights the need for renewed critical attention and archival efforts to preserve his visual legacy. To fully appreciate Sekera’s contributions to Sri Lankan culture, it is essential to explore his paintings—not only as aesthetic objects but also as integral components of his multidisciplinary vision.