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| Wednesday, 14 July 2004 |
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Amaresh Pereira : He does it his way by Carl Muller Think of ganglions of sensitivities... given to bouts of melancholy that come and go like flashes of dark lightning. Then think of an abiding creative spirit that soothes, spreads a gossamer cloak, enfolds the mind and whispers: "Take it all into pieces of colour, out of your unconscious, prise the things that make you what you are; make of your life a worthwhile testimony." Now think of Amaresh Pereira who, if he remembered rightly, began to draw on old books of discarded paper when he was three. At so tender an age, he just sketched - comical characters, cars, trees, fleshed out figures with cartoonistic adroitness. His schooldays were not suited to him. A strong streak of individualism began to surface and he thought too deeply, sat in a world of his own making. He did take to sports, but that was in passing; then to music. He sang, played the guitar, but he simply had to find his own way.
His versatility began to surface in the art class where he would "compose" the pictures that appealed to his somewhat vagrant soul. Appreciation took long to show its face. As he says: "I just wanted to chuck all thoughts of art when I was in grade eight. My art master was, to me, an old, aggressive and demented person. I then realized that some, who know nothing about art, masquerade as teachers. I boiled with resentment but could not show it. Then, like some saving grace, along came another master - a true artist who really studied my offerings, criticized softly, encouraged enthusiastically. What a man that was. He dug into the grave I had dug, where I was burying whatever talent I had, took it all out and held it all up with genuine admiration". Father's dream Yet, Amaresh's father had his own dream. He loved art too and still has a wonderful collection of Renaissance period paintings. He wanted his son to excel academically, become "someone". The idea that the boy would wish to be an artist - a painter - with a room full of canvases and pockets full of nothing remotely resembling money, made him apprehensive.
He also minded that Amaresh was not the easiest son to be led. Creative energy is nerve-wracking. It keeps pumping at one like a bellows that fans mental flames, then draughts of ice-cold air. Sandwiched between his father's apprehensions and his mother's gentle understanding, Amaresh was lost in an immense aurora of bewilderment. He sickened, broke down, hardly knew himself. It took time to pull himself out of a mental and nervous slough. He was an artist. What he needed was not just familial understanding and in turn, familial bushwhacking. He wanted appreciation of who and what he was. He began to ardently chase after his own dream, set his own goals. There was no rebellion. Only an emphatic statement: "This is me. Accept me." Acceptance did come. The home became his nucleus of an artistic self-education. He also found there the support he needed and above all, that recognition that he was the "different one" - rising like a flame-feathered phoenix to soar with the spirit.
"It was my father's collection that brought me to the awareness of colour -colour so marvellously expressed by Rembrandt... then the true gaiety of colour in Norman Rockwell as well as the homely reality of what he seemed to do with such seeming effortlessness. When I saw Mudliyar Amarasekera's "Sorcerer's daughter" I saw sweep, form, the incredible use of expression. In my college chapel were David Paynter's murals to gloat over, then Dali, whose lines curled as his moustaches did." In 1997, Amaresh was a winner in a Replicate Painting competition. Then, with the LTTE attack on the Sri Dalada Maligawa, he simply had to compose his own vision of that horrendous event. "First, I used water colours, but then my parents gave me a set of oils. This new medium was like the taking of a giant stride." Technique To Amaresh, everything was trial-and-error. He mastered art technique himself, innovating, testing. When he had finally created his "Maligawa" composition, he knew that he had made, moulded, a future for himself. "The life of the painter - I had such a vast territory to cover and miles and miles to go.
It has never been easy. One day you are thought to be a visionary; the next a rebel; then a truth seeker; then just a dauber of colour. Misunderstandings by people who matter can be heartbreaking. You feel you are looking into the depths of your art and seeing failure. But I had the tremendous support of my parents. My mother remains such an inspiration. She also reminds that first I must believe in myself, learn to value the simple things of life, find inner peace in what I do." Amaresh held his first solo exhibition at the Alliance Francaise, Kandy in January 2000 and staged yet another in 2001. Both were warmly received. In 2001, he participated in three events of the George Keyt Foundation - exhibition for young contemporaries; Nawakalakaruwo; and for painters and sculptors. Then he featured at the National Arts Festival. In 2002, he found his art-view expanding. As he says: "Art can unite, break barriers. Art has to be a personal view, where fears, failures, expectations, happiness, even the heat of the moment, the mood of the mind all find equilibrium. I do not ask of what others see and paint. I want to put on canvas my own feelings and reactions of what I see, think about. I think my deep interest in philosophy, inner truth, sacred writing, all forms of music are also part of what I carry to my work. I may not get close enough to what I intend to create, but to come very near is better than being far out of focus." Exciting What he is now creating is both exciting and ultra-impressionistic. His new line of work has earned him listing in "Art of India/Contemporary Art of Sri Lanka", an Encyclopaedia Britannica publication. Yet, he does not say he has "arrived", although he is certainly forging ahead. He tells warmly of Professor Ashley Halpe who has always supported him, cheered him on, is critical, yet of immense help in pushing him on. He still talks warmly of his art master (the second, not the first). His many forays into the great writings of the philosophers, his enthusiasm for music-from pop, rock, to the classics, his immersion into the philosophy of art, his unflagging need to express himself, are now the many spokes in the wheel that spins him on. He can startle, shock, then lull you pleasingly. I have heard people say: "Oh yes, I can understand him, but I don't understand his art. "I hear the reverse too: "I can understand his art, but I simply don't understand him .' Amaresh is comfortable with both such remarks. He laughs. "Understand is such a trite word. I like it best when people see my work, then go away quite at a loss for words. If there is that dazed look in their eyes, so much the better!" **** Back **** |
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