Expressive art takes a different form

Saturday, 6 October 2012 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Rashika Fazali

A painting can speak a thousand words as it can be portrayed in many ways because the mind is constantly analysing matter.

For professional painter Vajira Gunawardena, he uses his experiences and what he feels to draw the various human states. He uses what he sees to create a new world and he believes his artwork is an expression of who he is.

With a Bachelors of Fine Arts (BFA) degree from the University of Kelaniya, he has been painting fulltime for a period of 20 years. He has held solo exhibitions locally and internationally with collections exhibited in UK, USA, Australia, Italy, France, Sweden, Ireland, Belgium, Holland and Netherlands.

In regard to how his work is developed, he said it is done through his free thinking nature, further stating, “In my final year, I wanted to do something different with art. I wanted to create an art form that will have a mixture of styles.”

His art is defined as neo-expressionism which uses a form of modern painting and sculpture painting, and as the word itself says – it’s about portraying objects and human bodies in abstract, a rough and violent way with vivid colours.

What makes his art differ is how he uses low art – graffiti art, and high art – traditional art, in his paintings. With this type of art, he focuses on intersecting the body and place and re-examining human histories, cultural conditions and events.

He draws inspiration from Jean-Michel Basquiat, a well-known neo-expressionist who included graffiti styles into his drawings. “He formed a new form of art with a combination of different styles and made neo-expressionism stand out,” said Vajira. Another artist Vajira was inspired by was Georg Baselitz whose art focused on deformation, its message and vibrancy of the colours.

With themes like ‘Modern Citizen,’ ‘Reborn in Virtual Fiction World’ and ‘Crisis of Hegemony,’ he focuses on showing the deep psychological meaning behind people and society. His art is the kind that gets people thinking of endless possibilities.

Art can reach out to all sorts of people because it does not have a language. However it needs to convey the right message to people. Gunawardena added that his environment presents him with topics which he uses in his art.

“I use in my art the dissatisfaction that comes from greed and the difficult transition from a traditional lifestyle towards a so-called ‘modern day’ existence. But my day to day environment does not offer me any intellectual answers or any perspective with which I can make the right translations into my art,” he stated.

He is due to attend a group exhibition in the UK in February.

Pic by Upul Abayasekara