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The World of Arts:
The spectacular radiance of Ranjit Perera's brush
Gwen Herat previews
Ranjit Perera is a unique painter. He brings in a tremendous amount
of literacy to his art. They are all lyrics and poems coated in colour.
Subconsciously, there is a sense of academic quality influenced and
injected to his visual thinking.
Meandering around his studio where he is getting ready to hold an
exhibition of his paintings, I felt a depth of passion and feeling
creeping upon my senses. Why is he still in the background ? was my
foremost thought.
Painters of lesser skills and talent are raved even the media and at
times, focussed by people who have little knowledge or a barren eye for
art. It is the responsibility of the critic and reviewer to appraise art
in its true sense as he sees them rather than prop up weak quality or
downplay the genuine.
Painters like Ranjit are whole-hearted in individuality. Ranjit
projects his own terms in nature scenes with a total Sri Lankan identity
in his figures whether they are Sinhala, Muslim or Tamil.
He paints their attire as worn by the locals with no Indian influence
on Tamil characters. One would easily spot the character as a Sri Lankan
Tamil. So much for his national pride and so much for all nationals.
Ranjit is a passionate painter and works magic on his palette. His brush
strokes are free-flowing, gentle and lofty that ends in magnificent
results.
More self innovated with natural talent born, Ranjit was for a spell
of about two years under the guidance of Nadine David who found a
bountiful of ability in him. She was smazed with is instinctive
painting. David had loads of praise for this outstanding student of her.
From his early days at Trinity, art became his fascination as he used
to watch David Paynter restore the chapel murals at Trinity College.
Ranjit had good teachers to inspire him in the likes of Stanley Kirinde
and Hardy.
The school environment was terrific that it fired his imagination. He
would capture the city of Kandy where the river, lake and mountain met.
The lush vegetation was irresistible to the young Ranjit. He saw in
their surroundings what others did not. He became possessed by their
beauty. He admits the only prize he won at college was for art though he
went on to become an academic.
Out of college, he had a stressful life at his workplace as his art
lay buried until his early retirement. A Graduate from the University of
Peradeniya, he was a rubber broker and auctioneer for about twenty years
at Forbes and Walkers and retired as a director of the company.
A late bloomer in art, he simply spectacular and magnificent. A
corporate executive, turned painter, Ranjit is determine to catch on the
lost years. He proved his worth when Art Collector, Thomas Bunn called
him a complete artiste who makes one react to his art.
Ranjit's brush moves with elegance as his visions merge slowly but
gracefully like an awakening ballerina. The divinity and the beauty in
the eyes of the human face can come off the brush of an icon and Ranjit
Perera is in threshold of being a genius. I am sure of that, something I
had predicted to painter Segar before he left Sri Lanka.
The wonderous paintings in the Cestine chapel ceiling by
Michaleangelo haunts Ranjit as it does to me. He admits his admiration
to Constable and Corot for their landscape and nature scenery while his
other favourites include among others Rembrandt, Delacrois Titian, and
impressionist-Cezanne.
But one need not fret for Ranjit to be only motivated by these
Masters because it is very obvious that his talents lay in himself. To
the numerous art exhibitions I have been invited, I have seen so many
Masters being copy-painted which should not be so.
One can be influenced by their style and colour combination of the
past great painters by the upcoming artist must refrain from being
addicted to their mastery.
I am keeping my fingers crossed to view Ranjit Perera's new
collection of painting due in January 2008, very specially his charcoal
drawings that are so unique and essentially his own creations which are
simply brilliant, a fact he is still unaware.
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