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Artist Statement -



Art for me art is a medium to express my reflections on the enviornment in which I am placed. I feel our identity is not static, its dynamic. It is moleded by our circumstances although we assume our identity as stable and unique by birth, upbrining and the other inherent 'qualites' we fail to appreciate the vulnarability of our identity. Art is a medium which helps us to relate and reflect on our condition thus helping us constantly to renew and realise our identity.

Artist Exhibitions



I am in the process of compiling my past and current exhibition opportunities.

Artist Publications



Features 18 July, 1999


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Putting pieces together
"Shrine: A place of worship"

"A meeting place"

"A place of hiding"

"May be a bombing target"

These are some of the definitions of the word "shrine" as interpreted by the artist Godwin Constantine. No central figure dominates this untitled painting. A silhoutte of a seated Buddha image with the obligatory Bo-leaves dangling over it, the silhoutte of a Stupa, on a close look appearing to be a recent ruin, segments of the wall round the Kandy lake are all parts of this collage. A dry twig growing out of the Bo-leaves physically touches the observer. The word 'bomb' has been placed quite unobtrusive in the lower corner of the picture, this word too is disjoint into letters.

The visitor to the recent exhibition of paintings and installations by Godwin Constantine at the Gallery of the Vibhari Academy of Fine Arts was expected to put the seemingly unconnected pieces together. The individual works of art themselves become components of an entire collage presented at the exhibition.

Constantine has named his first one man exhibition "Existence: Death and Mourning". The reality of existence can only be noticed by death and the mourning of those who survived.

The palmyrah trees, skulls, horrified faces, Buddha statues, churches seem to be some of the leitmotifs of this selection. At the "informal opening" Constantine read "The story of the broken palmyrah. Concluding his elegy on the palm tree:

".... the passerby did not have a place to urinate any more. Then God could not bear this. He sent his messenger to remove it from its place". Concluding his recitation with these lines, Constantine set fire to his painting showing the different states of the destruction of the Palmyrah. This performance was dedicated to Rajini Thiranagama.

"Putting the pieces together is not easy". Is another comment on a painting picking out the restoration of the Dalada Maligawa as its central theme. Details of photographs showing the destruction and reconstruction of the shrine are used in this collage. Constantine's combination of colour and sense of space give a certain surrealistic touch to these collages. The two paintings occupy the corner of a room showing destroyed churches, grinning skulls under thin tall palmyrah palms and terrified faces. For those who regard the bomb blast on the eve of the golden jubilee celebrations of Sri Lanka's independence, as an isolated attack on a much valued Buddhist shrine, "Putting pieces together" would indeed be a difficult task. The broken palmyrah, the segment of the Kandy lake parapet, the Buddha statue would remain to them unconnected icons.

Since the outbreak of the ethnic war, some artists do have chosen the medium of visual art to protest. Constantine does not use dead bodies of devastated houses to convey his message by rearranging and reorganizing symbols. He attempts to show the sufferings of the civilians.

The artist does not by any means confine himself to violence in the resplendent island. The collage using Picasso's "Guernica" draws the span of more than half a century: from 1937 when the oldest town of Bascan tradition was bombed during the Spanish Civil War and the NATO attack on Korisa this year.

At this exhibition the visitor is allowed to step into the first ever room installation. Does one enter a cave? A tomb? Or a cell in the prison? When one is greeted by a skeleton?

Faces masklike gaze out of empty cartons, some contain pictures of grenades, missiles, knives etc. Some cartons contain just words denoting acts of violence like "rape" or "abduction". We, visitors of this type of exhibition naturally do not resort to violence. But why did the artist include mirrors that show one's own face juxtaposed with criminal faces in other cartons?

Even the word "grudge" is included with catalogue of violence. In one end human bones are displayed in similar cartons. Paper streamers decorate another corner of this room. The material is from the newspapers documentary violence read by us consumers of media.

- DR. ASOKA DE ZOYSA
Modern Languages Department
Kelaniya University


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There's beauty, anger and difference
By Asoka de Zoysa
"Harmony", the first ever group exhibition to be organized by the Indian Cultural Centre in association with the Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts brings together five artists from different cultural backgrounds.

Some artists like Kushan Manjusri inspired by Buddhist philosophy use varied metaphors of South Asian art deriving from murals in cave temples to Rajasthani miniatures. It is nevertheless difficult to brand Kushan's paintings as Indian art or Sri Lankan due to his individual style. He also draws much inspiration from the West. The other artists Muhanned Cader, Godwin Roger Constantine, G. Kailasanathan and Nilanthi Weerasekara seem to have been influenced by the masters of classical modern art. This is not surprising as all these artists, except for Kailasanathan, who had his formal training in Kopay Training College, Jaffna have had direct contact with western art academies. They can be regarded as the mentors of avant garde art in Sri Lanka today.

What is most fascinating is that these artists have not painted for the sake of producing art. Going by their works exhibited or published so far, they show individual developments in recent years, each artist following his or her highly individual agenda at times to protest, at times to create awareness, at times to make one rethink standards and notions carried down for generations.

Naturally, those who try to discover the cultural identity of each artist on the base of his language, ethnicity or religion, will most likely be disappointed.

These artists have gone beyond picturesque representations, just to please the eye. No ruins of ancient temples, no sunsets, no sedate villagers in timeless space and no beggars of romantic squalor. Instead they use symbols sometimes with an overt message. Quite often these symbols are twisted the other way round, like in the case of Muhanned's paintings, when he makes a laconic comment to a social reality that we take for granted. Looking closely at his untitled painting, one finds a part of a tie placed on a Kulla. He thereby places the tie, an ornament of smartness and credibility, on the Kulla, which is an utensil that separates grain from straw, having no status value like the tie.

Godwin's untitled painting at a distance looks more like an arrangement of wall tiles. When one gets closer, the grotesque skulls grinning out of the coloured checkerboard become visible, just like the war in this country, regarded from a 'safe' distance, has come to be another facet of life if not taken as a multitude of individual tragedies. The unconcerned majority forgets the dead when the media relaxe and turn their attention to other distractions. The lost lives due to war blur out into statistics in history.

Against the backdrop of primitive cave art, Kushan's lady gazes into space unseeing like the Moghul ladies. Her breasts and neck reveal ideals of female beauty as written in classical ornate poetry, the Sanskrit Kavya. The only female artist Nilanthi, rejects these very standards of beauty. She selects examples from the Sigiriya frescos, and gives a new reading in her fabricated woman.

Going by these few works, selected at random, one may wonder how these artists with such different modes of expression would produce and select their works for the forthcoming exhibition. Whether the objectives of the organizers have been achieved or not, will be decided by the general public visiting this very unusual exhibition.

The exhibition will be inaugurated on December 16 and will be open to the public on Dec.17 and 18, at the Indian Cultural Centre, Bauddhaloka Mawatha, Colombo 4.



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Breaking the limits.... -

A commentary on the contemporary Sri Lankan Art scene,~by G.R. Constantine

One pleasant evening in November 1992 I stepped into the National Art
Gallery to see an exhibition of an artist of whom I had heard a lot about from a mutual friend in London. As this artist had recently returned from the US after his postgraduate studies, I expected his exhibition to be some what 'deviant' from the exhibitions of the time. At the entrance I was told by a lady at the desk that it is a 'high standard complicated art' in rather a cautious manner, maybe to warn me not to become disappointed if I don't see what is expected in a usual art exhibition of that time.

True to that lady's words it was complicated to start with. My first round through the gallery took me a while to come to terms with what I was looking at. Most of the 'paintings' were just scribbles with some statements repeated painting after painting."I would like to make my own religion"-this was the repeating statement. Actually it was not complicated, it was quite straight forward... The meaning of those words did not extend beyond what it read. This repeating statement confronted me and started engaging me, the viewer, in a dialogue. Am I a subject of a global religion or am I
constructing my own religion with what I know, what I want and perhaps with what I believe.

Here, without realising I was actively involved in this dialogue of
self-questioning. I was unable to fathom what I was experiencing in terms of conventional aesthetic appreciative process. But in rather a squed appreciative process I realise that this art form requires the active participation of the viewer for the completion of the full
creative-appreciative processes. This is the basic essence of conceptual art.

This exhibition by Jagath Weerasinghe could be regarded as the first
exhibition to clearly demarcate the shift of Sri Lankan art from a
perceptual level to a conceptual level. Sri Lankan art has held perceptual tendencies since the early days of ancient cave and temple paintings. These ancient artifacts were a form of direct representational painting which visually or imaginatively perceived images from the artist's immediate environs. At that time there was a need to record important events or to venerate gods and deities. During this period the subject of art centered around mainly gods, heavenly beings, Jataka stories and the royalties.

During the colonial period, Sri Lanka art came under the spell of British influence. This influence can be seen in both religious and secular art.During this period secular art gained prominence and art became more 'liberalised' and more socially oriented. Introduction of easel ,canvas and western paint had great impact in the way painting was done up to that time.There was also a change in the subject matter with landscape and portraiture becoming important subject matter in art. However the mode of presentation of subject remained direct representation, perceptual rather than conceptual.

Though the British introduced formal art education and 'departmentalised'art with state patronage, it was not until C.F.Windsor came as the art inspector did modern art achieve the impetus to become an important mode in Sri Lanka. It was the '43 group' that spearheaded the modern art movement in Sri Lanka. The '43 group' was formed as an alternative group with a small group of artist supported by well-wishers. It gradually grew up to become
one of the most important and influential art groups in the history of art in Sri Lanka.

Modern art introduced the basic concepts of abstraction and expression in art through alteration in basic elements. This paved way for the indirect representation where visually perceived external reality was distorted by the subjectiveness of the artist. Here, the art became a subjective presentation of external reality. Both Modern art and the '43 group'remained the dominant forces in the art scene till early 1990's. Artists seemed to be satisfied ...

Artist Collections



Numerous private, corporate, museum, gallery and government collections detailed information coming soon.

Artist Favorites