Almost an year ago, a group of young and vibrant art personalities with strong opinions came together at a leaving party of a mutual friend. A random thought transformed into a collective consensus and thereafter, decided to form a group for which they decided upon the name ‘The Hot Butter Collective’. The name may sound culinary, yet it isn’t. Ryan ...
Saskia Fernando launched Sri Lanka’s first freestanding professional gallery in 2009 after working in the art scene since 1999. The gallery expanded in December 2013 to a space where it now stands as the largest contemporary art gallery in the island, housing exhibition spaces and a private viewing gallery facilitating over 300 works. Artists represented are either Sri Lankan by ...
Sanjeewa Kumara’s colorful, florid paintings of six-legged elephants, cranked out over the past decade or so with the regularity of a computer algorithm programmed to change details with every image, are lively, even lovely. They brighten, animate the space they occupy. Nevertheless, I would call them commercial trinkets, a garnish designed to adorn the home or office of an expatriate, ...
Dirk Flamer Caldera popularly associated with Colombo Fashion Week has a deep rooted connection with the Sri Lankan visual art scene. George Keyt, a prominent 43 Group member, whose work is extensively discussed by Prof. Qadri Ismail in the previous article, was personally known by Dirk. He was a frequent visitor of the exhibitions that ...
Scott Gardiner, born in 1975, graduated with a Master of Visual Arts with Honours in painting from the Auckland University of Technology. He has been a multiple finalist in the Wallace Art Awards as well as the 2012 New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award. His work has been exhibited in private and corporate collections throughout New Zealand, Australia and the ...
We have heard of Chandima Rajapatirana, the poet and writer, who is the author of ‘Traveler’s Tales: My journey with Autism’. The foreward of his book states “Chammi Rajapatirana describes himself as a mute. He can speak sounds, but describes them as unmodulated, unshaped, ununderstandable squeals”. This sentence immediately captured our attention, not because of its literal implication, but because ...
Sonali Pompeus’ interest in sketching blossomed during her later school days. She enjoyed drawing the faces of her classmates, at points they were not aware of. At the time, her motive was to replicate every detail and every significant feature of their face on paper through the use of a basic pencil on the back of her school notebooks, without ...
Qadri Ismail The author of Abiding by Sri Lanka: on Peace, Place and Postcoloniality,’ Qadri Ismail is a Professor of English at the University of Minnesota. He has written on art since 2008. He read his Ph.D in English at the Columbia University in 1998. He specializes in the fields of cultural studies, historiography, post colonial literature, ...
Kallol from Kolkata, West Bengal, launched his label, KallolDatta 1955, in 2008. A degree holder in fashion design from the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) and a womenswear degree from Central St. Martins, London, He is labeled as ‘the face of new Indian fashion’ with his designerwear having brought to light a new wave of ethno-grunge dressing. Kallol is ...
Capt. Elmo Jayewardene, Pilot and Founder of the Annasi and Kadalagotu Literary Festival, is a simple man with a calling for the literary scene in Sri Lanka. Having lived and worked in Singapore for twenty years and spending a penurious childhood, he always asserted the needs of the common man. His love for literature transformed him into a notable ...
Musicmatters Festival is an annual music festival with a focus on exposing Sri Lankans to music that is generally not accessible through radio and television, but which deserve to be recognized for its original creative spirit and the dedicated musicians who perform it. The festival is organized by a collective of musicians and faculty affiliated to Musicmatters, a performance based ...
Riaz Cader’s interest in wildlife began as a child. His love for wildlife blossomed through picturesque books, animations and movies, Lion King being his favourite. When he was 12 years of age, he recieved his first camera which was a point and shoot one with minimal features, which did not stop him from capturing his perspectives. ...
Angamapora is a self-defense mechanism that incorporates hand-to-hand combat, melee, projectile, ballistio weapon fighting, meditation, medicine, astrology and spells. After the British invaded Ceylon, they made sure that Angampora fighters were made extinct, as they were a great threat to their rule. When the leading Angampora fighters were massacred, the rest took refuge in unknown places to survive and protect ...
Sameera is a 3rd year student. He uses the etching technique. His art is influenced by experience of the contemporary socio-political situation in Sri Lanka. ‘’The human body is displaced. There is a price for every part and no one can escape this reality”. To read more about the Sameera and his work, purchase a copy of ARTRA Magazine ...
The Brightsparks show is part of HSBC Colombo Fashion Week 2015’s aim to cultivate young design talent. A handful of exceptionally talented and aspiring fashion deisgners, selected by a panel of judges, are given the coveted opportunity to be guided by the CFW team and showcase the end result at the show. This year 8 designers succesfully debuted their collections ...
Richard Texier is an internationally renowned French painter and sculptor, whom we had the pleasure to meet at the informal gathering organized by the Embassy of France when he visited Colombo recently. Richard began painting at the age of 12 and developed an interest in the history of astronomy, which is evidently reflected in most of his artwork even today. ...
The Theertha International Artists Collective launched a mini performance festival in Sri Lanka for the first time which took place from the 13th to the 16th of March. The Theertha Performance Platform is an artistic initiative, in many ways, focusing on the history, learning and practice of performance arts. It created a space for sharing this practice with students, young ...
The youngest son of Elizabeth Moir MBE and the late Kesang Tenduf-La, Chhimi is half Tibetan and half English but has been in Sri Lanka since 1982, except when he was studying at Eton College and Durham University or working for Ernst & Young in London. He said of his writing, ‘Although I am an avid reader, I am not a particularly intellectual one. What I ...
Q | What was it in your life that inspired you to be an author? A | I think the fact that books have always been a part of my life in a big way even before being able to read for myself got me fascinated with books at a very early age and the love for books and what they contained was like something ...
Q | When capturing coral reefs, is there a specific area in Sri Lanka you prefer capturing? And what’s special about that place for you? A | My heart really lies in Colombo when it comes to underwater photography. I started diving in Colombo. Before I moved back from overseas, I had a handful of dives but after being here, I got connected to other underwater ...
