Segar heading for Sotheby’s

Gwen Herat

ART: An Impressionist; a Romantic; a stroker of cubism; a believer in classicism and they all roll with passionate force and become Segar, the peer of all great expectations in the world of art.

He is an icon painter who invented his own style of drawing. He pays tribute to the beauty of Asian women and everything his eyes behold ... from nature to religion... from life to eternity. They are all captured in the fury of colour and moist, sometimes based on line and square but not particularly in cubism but which I find in many of his paintings.

Segar is rightfully a different artist, someone Sri Lanka is immensely proud of. His brush strays towards abstract too but not with severe force. He has tremendous energy as he dabbles in creating his own colour schemes.

Very bold in the use of fiery reds, stunning blues, gorgeous greens and the sunny yellows. He also competes with the setting sun, plucking off his vibrant orange to set of the dull colours. Not entirely dependent on subtle colour. Segar also gets carried away by their impact when in a pensive mood.

His favourite animal is the bull and he reveres it the way he does with, Ganesha. Segar also paints Christ in sombre mood and the Buddhist monks in their saffron robes.

This is Segar the genius who is poised to settle his art in Hyderabad. What Sri Lanka will lose will be India’s gain. But the son of our vibrant soil did confess he will be back to his roots once he establishes himself solidly.

And Segar has to move on. He has to get in to the bracket of some of India’s greats who have stormed into Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

And why not our Segar? In due time he will be in par with renowned Indian painters like M. Hussain, Tyeb Meheta, V.S. Gaintonde, F.N. Souza, Rameshwar Broota, J. Swaminathan, Ram Kumar, S.H. Raza, Atul Dodia etc..

These artists’ paintings are priced over one million dollars a painting at Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Segar also paints with the same deft hands and passion like these painters and their names spell magic in the world of art, not only in India but internationally.

Once Segar sets up his private and permanent collection in the Alankritha Art Gallery in Hyderabad where many great painters debutted, it will be only a matter of time for Segar to join the brigade of the greats. If he is clever enough to convince and negotiate Osian’s and Saffromart, India’s tow leading art auctioneers, he will no doubt, get the break.

He started simplifying and abstracting figures so that line and colour would harmonies rather than the objects itself. Segar is one painter who relies on colour as his vehicle for expression. The realistic depiction of ordinary objects is of no importance. It is the substance that he finds in roaring colour that matter.

The brilliant luminous colours fascinate him. In a sense, he challenges the conventional ideas of figure and line never pausing to wonder why and consciously reject the image in his art. His expression in painting are different and very soon Sotheby’s will marvel at them and Christie’s will add to their collection.

He has no free floating forms but serene and courageous in his strokes. Did he decide to upset the convention of painting and turn away from nature? I wonder at times.

He explains his theories in sequences but profoundly influence the ideas of modern, contemporary and abstract art. He is a genius at it. It is so classical that one has to study his paintings to absorb what’s in it. You cannot glance at his art for a moment and turn away because there is more to what meets the eye. Does he express emotion through form? There again it is a challenge for the critic.

But there is so much of music, poetry and passion in all his work. Yes, music is so vibrant in his art that I can recall the powerful but highly classical scores of Tchaikovsky, vibrant and full of life.

Through a series of sketches, he increases abstract until the final composition appear. His hand is disciplined and fingers steady, rarely overlapping what he has in mind. May be he divides his art into impressions and compositions and the spontaneous results are the explosion of colour and rhyme in variety.

Segar is aware that colour could and would advance or diminish in the hands of the painter and therefore, he allows all vibrant colours to filter through his fingers on to the canvas. His female figures are sensuous but without sexism.

The mystique oriental beauty captured in them are both alluring and voluptuous and rekindle the ladies of the harems of kings of yore. They are heavenly and profound evoking many a desire in the beholder. Segar plays on colour and light but not to enhance a particular point. They are merely gap-fillers for this gorgeous figures.

His is a new language in art so different to most painters. As I have always said, I could pick a ‘Segar’ from a distance just the way I do with Lawry’s match-stick paintings or for that matter, Monet’s. Segar has his exhibits permanently sited in many countries but operated from his beloved Sri Lanka. But time has come for him to move on.

Though he is a leading figure in art in Sri Lanka, he only knows too well he has to seek greener pastures and the rich soils of the neighbouring India is the place for him to reach the celestial heights in his art.

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