Cora de Lang opens up Pandora Box

Sachitra MAHENDRA

My life is a pilgrimage through different continents and cultures till I will reach the last truth within myself one day.

I have travelled widely throughout the world. I have no words to spell out my joy in Sri Lanka. I have seen the woes and joys of the people in this country. You got to stay with a culture for long if you need to understand its people. I have been here since 2004, and I will carry on breathing in this culture.

What is my mode of expression? It's the question that has been with me since long. I feel I could have done more. But for some reason, I have chosen painting and sculpture. The monotony of the dull buildings and dull streets cast a gloom on my soul. It always harmed my inspiration and enthusiasm. I started feeling like paralysed in my existence, inner desires and convictions. It symbolised a snail for me.

I finally made up mind to look out for answers, guidelines or just hints. I started having faith in my inner voice. It was but all an entire film that kept me away from the paralysed feeling.

We all see water becoming ice by cooling and condensation. Isn't it strange? I started seeing thoughts in the same way. They take a physical form by condensation too. I see everything in the universe as thought in material form. Perhaps my interpretation of 'condensation' should be different. I draw and paint. I believe these modes liberate my inner self and at the same time they give me joy and happiness. I slowly realised that this is nothing but an universal law. It is barriered by obstacles and tests, and you need patience and faith to overcome them.

Ever since my childhood I saw myself often in an imaginary film. Sitting quietly in a corner of the studio of my uncle, Ruben Locaso. I spent hours and hours painting. I dreamt of becoming an artist, I experienced myself in this 'film' expressing my feelings , dreams and stories by painting , what gave me an almost sensual joy. I dived in this world of fantasy, where strange creatures and magic animals dominated the landscape, where everything was possible.

I remember what Kandinsky said: "artist cannot be free in life, only in art." Travelling along my hometown, I could colour the gray environment into a fair of joy comprising cheering people full of life and openness of mind. Equipped with conviction of what to flee and what to seek, I left hometown for longer travels throughout the continent and around the world. I had to tell myself that the dismissal of the otherness as a culture, countries or people are nourished and preserved by prejudices. And I wanted to win over them.

Whatever ugly appearance crossed my way I was looking for its inheriting beauty. I was always fascinated by other races and beliefs. I wanted to destroy the prejudices, to prove that everything is relative.

With the beginning of the travels and in a later stage my residency in Germany, India, Nigeria, Mexico, Spain and Sri Lanka, I experienced encounters with souls of old friends, dressed in different races, speaking different languages and idioms, coined by their immediate cultural surroundings - but nevertheless so naturally known to me.

I see reality whatever the metre it indicates. Time and space is less measured in hours and miles, but in joyful or sad, long or quick episodes and encounters as well as supportive or blocking environments. Being on the trail, my footsteps are growing in size and depth, as I grew up in the world of boxes and cardboards. My grandfather had set up a factory of pliable packages; My father took over. And some wrapping material, cardboards and boxes became part of my life - my first 'canvases', my playground for drawings and paintings. They have accompanied my life, have been my confidants, my solace, my enticement, my playmates, my inspiration and my creative projection.

Pandora is the first woman in Greek mythology to get the help from gods. She was a result of Zeus punishment of mankind for Prometheus' theft. Pandora opened a box which she was asked not to. The box released all the evils to the mankind and only hope was left when she closed it.

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