Artist in a floating world
Nipuni WIMALAPALA
Jayantha Silva is quite famous among Sri Lankan art lovers. He is one
eminent artist who has emerged in the country. His work is innovative
and expressive.
  His portraits and figurative arts are incomparably impressive. He
works with pastels, charcoal and acrylic. Apart from paintings, he does
portraits. His creative mindset has produced a large number of wonderful
paintings and portraits.
Jayantha Silva is to present his eighth major art exhibition at
Lionel Wendt Art gallery on January 20 at 6 pm. Expressions 8, the
exhibition of Figurative art will remain open till 22 January.
Silva's artistic capability was polished during his schooling time at
St. Peters College, Bambalapitiya. He showed talents while being a small
child. As a 12 year old child he had taken part in many art competitions
across the island and won first and second places.
After leaving the school, he got into the advertising industry. Then
again in 1983 and 1984, he became serious about art. He wanted to do it
the professional way.
He did a lot of work and started holding art exhibitions. He
presented many exhibitions in Sri Lanka as well as abroad. Once he
exhibited his creativity in Sydney, Australia. His works have been
exhibited in New Delhi, India. He was sponsored by Export Development
Board and he took part in a trade fair. The purpose was specifically to
promote art as an export.
He also does portraits where people are able to send him pictures to
be made into portraits. Last November, upon request, he drew the
portrait of Sri Lankan President. Besides he has also done paintings for
the Tea Board. Jayantha collaborated with Fr. Anton Weerasinghe whereby
a collection of his paintings were given poetic interpretation by Fr.
Anton.
 Previously he has held art exhibitions at Galle Fort and light House
Hotel where a lot of tourists were attracted. There were some other
artists with him and his main purpose was to promote them as well. His
paintings are attractive with a huge cultural value that tourists demand
them appreciating him. Most of his previous exhibitions were great
successes from which he gained better recognition.
According to Silva, Sri Lankan artists are very talented though they
have not achieved the necessary recognition.
"Being an artist, I believe that we should get a better recognition
since we possess standard talents. Of course our actors, actresses,
dancers and most of the other artists have got better facilities. So we
really seek a art centre in Colombo to gather and do our work," he said.
"I love to focus on Sri Lankan smile, which is popular throughout the
world. I put a big effort to promote Sri Lankan artists and to promote
our cultural values through my work. Now I am totally dedicated to the
art through which I enjoy my life. And I hope to carry on this
creativity further to produce more impressive paintings and portraits
with deep meanings," he added.
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