When artist Dumith Kulasekera found himself staring for hours into the eyes of his mother, he discovered it wasn’t an entirely comfortable experience. “That was the first time we were doing that actually,” he says of his decision to ask her to pose for him. Titled ‘(The) M-Other,’ it was in part a meditation on motherhood.
The painting, though far from being one of his most dramatic or provocative, still has a special significance for him. In his depiction, her face is sturdy and her gaze faintly accusing. Around her head, an orange halo creates the impression of a “holy mother,” says Dumith, explaining that the relationship between parent and child can be one fraught with Freudian undertones. Keenly aware of this complexity, he counterbalances it with the clean geometry and an uncluttered palate in the painting itself.