Celebrating the contributions of eight pioneers of Sri Lankan art, Legacies features a tightly curated selection of artworks created between 1930 - 2020. Sri Lankan modern and contemporary art practice resulted from the many encounters it had with its immediate cultural environment. Similar to developments in visual culture across the world, art production in Sri Lanka was shaped by the political, social and economic aspirations of the 20th-21st century. Showcasing works by Lionel Wendt, George Keyt, Richard Gabriel, H.A. Karunaratne, Tilak Samarawickrema, Senaka Senanayake, Jagath Weerasinghe and Chandraguptha Thenuwara, Legacies pays homage to their indelible imprint, and far-reaching influence they had on the landscape of visual art in Sri Lanka.
The advent of modernism in Sri Lanka is often associated with the 43 Group; a conglomerate of young artists who were unified in their fatigue of the conservative style endorsed within artistic circles in pre-Independence Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon). Their exposure to Impressionistic and Post-Impressionistic movements in Europe and the freedom of expression inherent to it, encouraged them to experiment with the visual medium and develop individual styles.
In George Keyt’s reinterpretation of medieval period Indian paintings, one can observe the coalescing of distinct worlds. The mythological themes imagined through sinuous lines that characterise Sri Lankan murals morph into thick, bold strokes that mimic the Cubist forms. Keyt’s practice not only bridged idioms separated by time and space into the folds a syncretic style, but also mirrored the osmosis of cultures. Like him, his contemporary, Lionel Wendt exhibited a proclivity to experimentation, going beyond the scope provided by the camera to create surreal vistas of imagination through photomontage.
Notably remembered for convening the artists who later constituted the 43 Group, Lionel Wendt was a pioneering photographer whose images of male nudes continue to remain radical in the context of their production. While an element of an exotication remains, the labouring body, captured through Wendt’s lens, brims with vigour and power and becomes images of quiet defiance against colonial control.
As Sri Lanka transitioned into an independent nation state, and sought economic and political freedom, it was also confronted with ideological challenges. Richard Gabriel’s bucolic visages, in their measured naivety gesture towards an ideal of freedom, dignity and compassion. His depictions of the struggle between man and nature reflect an aspiration to preserve utopian values in a rapidly changing world. Senaka Senanyake’s 1978 painting of verdant pasturelands, which prefigured his depictions of tropical rainforests, echoes similar sentiments in response to the pressures of urbanisation and the expanding tourism industry. Thus, the image of pastoral life encapsulated an idyllic past untouched by industrialisation and capitalism, that had arrived with colonial rule, and later became the preoccupations of a newly formed country.
As the nation sought its place in an increasingly globalised world, artists readily As the nation sought its place in an increasingly globalised world, artists readily experimented with previously unfamiliar forms of aesthetic expression, often resulting in shifts within the art and craft practices in the island. Informed by his experiences in Europe and America, Tilak Samarawickrema revitalised Sri Lankan crafts by reimagining it through the visual sensibilities of the Bauhaus and the Memphis Group. Samarawickrema also unpacked the sensuousness of the Sinhala script, as he sought a contemporary global landscape for the moon-faced characters inspired from Sri Lankan folk to coexist within.
Similarly, Karunaratne transformed the established approach to image making at an institutional level during his tenure as a lecturer at fine arts academies in Sri Lanka. Under Karunaratne’s tutelage, the academic curriculum largely defined by a figurative practice, witnessed a pedagogic shift as artists were encouraged to explore alternative materials and modes of expression. As a printmaking student in post-World War II Japan, H.A. Karunaratne found himself in a nation still in the process of redefining itself, resulting in visual artists working to innovative new methods. Deeply influenced by Buddhist and Zen philosophies, and American Abstract Expressionistic works Karunaratne explored the interplay between diverse materials ranging from fabric to metal.
As the fissures of ethnolinguistic issues that existed in Sri Lanka became visibly pronounced, much of contemporary Sri Lankan art began to be defined by artistic responses to the volatile socio-political climate from the 1990s. In this increasingly militarised environment, Chandraguptha Thenuwara’s practice dealt with the glorification of war, confronting a collective obliviousness to its impact, through figures of dead bodies concealed amongst military camouflage and soldiers dancing in wanton abandonment despite being amputated. Jagath Weerasinghe’s Broken Stupa, confronted the potency for violence when religion, otherwise admired for its values of Ahimsa, becomes intertwined with nationalism. Their practice, along with that of their contemporaries, paved the way for active discourse on social realities within the fine arts.
The exhibition, Legacies, meanders through the decades, tracing moments in the social and political history of the island, to identify the nodes that shaped the visual art landscape of contemporary Sri Lanka.
