Encapsulating culture in paintings
An inspiring array of incisive abstracts and
paintings:
Review by Ranga CHANDRARATHNE
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Manjista Manjusri and Saman Kumarasinghe
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The paintings are not only testimonies to the innate talents of the
painters but pieces from Sri Lankan culture which can be taken away as
memorabilia. Significantly each painting offers an original done with
expensive paints imported from France and other countries. The wide
array of paintings includes abstracts, realistic paintings.
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Manjista Manjusri carries on her father’s legacy of paintings and her
husband Saman Kumarasinghe is a born artist with a unique insight into
subject of paintings.
However, over the years, the duo has evolved not only a separate
identity for themselves but also modes of expressions in painting.
The influence of temple paintings and indigenous motifs are a
recurrent feature in their paintings. Significantly the blend of colours
is unique to each painting which is an original.
Saman Kumarasinghe stresses the fact that some of the paintings take
months to finish and the result is the meticulously crafted creation
with multiplicity of insights. However, it is the blend of realistic
paintings and abstract features that make Kumarasinghe’s paintings stand
out among contemporary Sri Lankan paintings.
  For instance the untitled painting bears all his signature
characteristics. For this painting, Kumarasinghe has principally used
blue and yellow. Centre of the frame is occupied by three creepers that
crisscross a female bust. Basically the creepers take blue, green and
red against the backdrop of blue strip that is cut across by wave-like
columns in yellow, green and magenta.
Two female hands are in the middle of the painting with red flower
between them. On top of the bust is a blue flower.
Although the face behind the bust cannot exactly be distinguished as
a male’s face, one may conclude that man might look behind the female.
Here the influence of temple painting is visible especially in the
selection of yellow and blue as dominant colours.
Abstract by Saman depicts the state of mind of an onlooker on a
female. Her legs and buttocks are prominently displayed.
However, they are covered with hodgepodges immediately below the hip
and a masked face with patterns of blue and red and also gray on the
chin.
The masked face apparently depicts the state of mind of the onlooker
against the surrealist background with exotic plant and extraordinarily
blue heaven.
This abstract is a riddle in a way and pictorial explanation of the
mind set of the onlooker. The onlooker’s feelings are mixed with hope,
aspiration and love and lust.
Saman Kumara’s painting on the maiden in the wood is an interesting
creation.
 I t has a scantily clad maiden in an exotic forest in the centre of
the frame. The maiden’s figure is seen from behind and it is set against
a wood of flowers in blue and red on one side and smudges of blue and
red on the other.
What is prominent here is not the nudity but the pristine femininity
embodied by the figure. Manjista’s painting of the mythical animal
‘Makara’ found in temple murals, is a recreation in lines.
The painting is made out of Sarpenda in Audience Hall Court Yard
Palkumbura Viharaya and Makara, eighteenth century mythical animal of
the same location. The figure is set in white lines against the backdrop
of black.
The painting of a fish is riddle-some. The fish is in the middle
while it is surrounded by circles. From another perspective, circles
turn into a mouth of another fish.
Here sheer creativity is at work. Significant aspect of this painting
is economy of objects.
The artist has skillfully created an abstract using minimum number of
objects with least number of colours. For this creation, the artist has
used a figure of a fish in ocean blue background. From another point of
view, the circles which represent wave, perhaps, in a sea, turn into
outer lines of a mouth of another fish.
Multiplicity
The abstract painting resembling a blue crystal is another unique
creation with multiplicity of insights. In the first place, the blue
crystal congers into human outlines and the middle of the outlines is
occupied by a naked woman torso in black. The peripheral of the figure
is surrounded by women figures, once again, in black depicting diverse
postures.
Here the artist’s imagination is at work. Perhaps, the women figures
in the blue crystal represent different stages of thought trends. The
background colour blue is appropriate not only to depict the deep trends
of thoughts but the sheer depth of them.
Manjista Manjusri and Saman Kumara’s gallery of paintings offer a
unique collection of paintings representing a myriad aspect of Sri
Lankan culture and an impressive array of insightful abstracts. Manjista
Manjusri is a daughter of legendary painter L.T.P Manjusri and currently
works as a teacher of Art at Colombo International School (CIS). The duo
can be contacted on following numbers (011-2500873, 0722-126340,
077-9293648). |
