Born in Colombo and currently living in London, a past pupil of Bishop’s College, Chudamani Clowes is an artist, teacher, a proud ceramics painter and, last but not least, also a winner of the Griffin Art Prize (2014). Chudamani, who has always been passionate about art and the environment, explains the relevance of the ocean, corals, and the underwater surface through her art. The exhibition “Sub-Marine” was held from 15 December, 2018 to 4 January, 2019, at the Saskia Fernando Art Gallery in Horton Place, Colombo 7. Tell me a bit about yourself I was brought up in West London, Nottingham. I studied art at St. Martin’s College of Art and Design, and Royal College of Art in the UK. I have always been passionate about art ever since I was a child. Art has always been a part of my life and I’m pleased to say that it’s made me who I am today. Researching at the Royal College of Art about bonnets at the British Museum, I was intrigued by the history of how the Victorians during that period saw us Lankans and vice versa. William Frith, who painted “a day at the races”, expressed the diversity of Victorian society. While researching, I came to the conclusion that they had represented us in a negative way – which is common with any dominant society. Thus, what I did was look at it from our Lankan perspective and thereby created the art which you see. Could you tell me how you came up with the name “Sub-Marine” for the exhibition held at the Saskia Fernando Art Gallery last month? “Sub-Marine” came up because it was a subject people rarely talk about. “Under the surface” generally isn’t spoken about at all; because when I used to speak about it 10 years ago people didn’t really address it. Even today, we really don’t necessarily talk about it. Thus, since I had wanted to bring a message to the rest of the people, I thought I would decide to talk about it, and what better way to highlight this topic than to use art as my moral tool.
