Barefoot's Colourful SagaSet on a total personal concept of its designer Barbara Sansoni, who initiated Barefoot as a personal odyssey many years ago from her residence at Anderson Road, its image has taken a turn for the better today. This was evident at a recent exhibition reflecting upon the many works of artists and others who work tediously behind the scene to keep the Barefoot image, created by its pioneer designer many, many moons ago intact.
There was Barbara walking around the 706 Gallery exchanging pleasantries on the event of presenting a collection of works by many of its designers and others who work in line with her thinking. Though the exhibition was held during the Christmas season the many works that were displayed showcased beyond Christmas but the spirit of joy that is necessarily the Barefoot image prevailed right throughout. Barbara Sansoni, whose initial musings as an artist did stand good stead when she launched out as a designer for hand-woven fabrics in the early 50s. Her inspiration necessarily drawn by the world around her and her strong sense for creating exotic colour combinations made her fabrics distinctively stand out from the rest of hand-woven fabrics produced at the time. In fact her work became a hallmark and was naturally copied by many who were inspired by Barbara's work.
But since copies of any sort can only reflect what they stand for, all attempts to copy the Barefoot image ultimately fell by the wayside while Barbara's creative sojourn continued to nourish her work that was mostly seen as a personal statement of an artist before it hit the shelves at Barefoot to be sold to its customers. It was well way past the initial stages where Barbara's creative strength and her untiring effort to make her project a success by producing a range of things based on her creative fabrics. Toys, clothes, household linen, tapestries and many more items that made Barefoot an extension of a creative artist's thoughts. Today, the stamp of Barbara Sansoni is still strongly reflected in the creative work that goes on at Barefoot even though the designer seemingly spends her time between Sri Lanka and her many travels abroad, which
has been a strong sense of inspiration to the artist in creating her work; Beside a team of designers who put their personal efforts fuelled by Barbara's inspirational guidance the recent exhibition proved that there are others, who does not work as fulltime designers do contribute to the ongoing work inspired by their grand dame of design. Among some of the work that stood out by many of the designers and others were '3 Kings' by Preethi Hapuwatte, Saris based on 'Glitter painting' by Niloufer Victoria, Marie Gnanaraj's series of tapestries titled Windows and doors 'un-plastered', Shaunagh Aluvihare's 'Poppy Coat' 'Faces and patterns' by Isabella Sophie and Leila, Bed cover by Somalatha Pathirana, 'Wewa' by Dilhan Fernando, an unusual piece of work by Chandrika Liyanage using coconut shells and 'Worm' by Sirisena. A set consisting of four large spools of yarn dyed by Barefoot's master dyer Jeremy Marajan was placed as a
focal point in the centre of the main gallery. Marjan who has spent all his life working as a dyer was once the master dyer for Ena de Silva Batiks. He excelled in his work while working for the batik establishment which created a forceful image of the art of batik by differentiating from the many batik manufacturers who mushroomed in the late sixties and the many who set upon copying its designs and vibrant colour which was what Jeremy Marjan represented technically.
At the main entrance to the gallery was some earlier works by artist Barbara Sansoni and on the right side beside Shaunagh Aluvihare's 'Poppy Coat' was a selection of photographs by Dominic Sansoni bringing out the many tones of joyous colours, toned and shaded to suite the subject he is dabbling in. But the approach is joyous, which is what the Barefoot image has always prevailed to be about. |
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