I, You and We
Various methods of expressing ideas are used by various persons
engaged in art. In most of those expressions, their reaction to
contemporary social environment is included. Or else, they seem to be
associated with the necessities, expected by the Socio-cultural
background of the time. This is common to both modern art and ancient
art. This is an endless process. Thus, art expressions of various forms
came out yesterday. They will come out today and tomorrow as well.
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Manoranjana Herath |
The principal mode of Manoranjana Herath’s art expression is
sculpture. It represents Visual art. Starting with the beginning of the
90’s, he had ventured far continuously studying and researching, along a
long winding journey.
He says, “It seems a long time to me when thinking of the
difficulties encountered by a sculptor engaged in these activities in an
island like Sri Lanka. Lots could be written in this regard. However,
time is short.”
“During this period I have presented various sculptural expressions.
You might remember some of them. Sometimes, may be that you have not
seen any of them. If not they may be of no interest. However, I searched
for different shapes and forms to my reactions through the language of
sculpture. They are multifarious. Among these are ideas heading towards
various directions similar to the branches of a tree. Yet all of them
are connected to the trunk. Some ideas have been brought down to date.
Some of the ideas have been changed a great deal.
In short, I may say that, time, environment, experience and things
owned and disowned by me directly influenced my foray into expressing my
self through art.”
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One of the sculptures which will be on display |
Sometimes he feels that a long and useless duration of time has been
spent on his work. It is neither worry nor an isolated thought. He sees
it as a monster taking shape in front of the witnesses. Within it they
find charm, unpleasantness, indescribable satisfaction, fear, as well as
something different.
“You might have felt the same sometimes. Every time the thought that
this is a disgusting thing arises, mind haunts among various Fantastic
forms and shapes, among concepts, and in front of reactions.
They haunt as 3-D and 2-D constructions in front of the eyes. So who
has been hiding within all these? Is it I? You? or We?
That was my question,” he relates on his exhibition of sculptural
objects which take strange patterns.
“The experiences, given to me by the environment built by all these,
floated to and fro in my mind, searching for various forms and shapes. I
sought forms and shapes to these human feelings that we all experience,
like love, happiness, sorrow, hope, anger, pain and patience. During the
whole foregone period these feelings took Three-Dimensional shapes by
and by and finally emerged as sculptures. In most of these, human
relationship became the common characteristic,” Manoranjana adds.
He further states that he questioned himself whether it is his story,
your story or our story about love, that we see in the “Love Story”
among the framed relief sculptures. There is no end to this story,
composed and compiled in seven frames within seven days. These
spectacular creations with edges and curves finely sculpted by the
artiste is now on display at the Barefoot Gallery.
PR |
