Nelun’s news flashes on screen prints
Artist Nelun Harasgama returns to Barefoot this week with an exhibition of screen prints and paintings. Speaking to the Sunday Times, Nelun explained that screen prints involved an elaborate process. “To achieve the desired textures in the final prints I first painted
Jealous crow
small paintings with oil on canvas then scanned them to make tracings or stencils.” The result were images that looked more like black and white photocopies. These tracings were then burnt onto silk screens using a light source. She finally printed them using water based inks laid on conqueror board or acid free drawing paper. “I have hand printed only one of each serigraph print after which the screen was destroyed,” says Nelun now, “These are one-off original works.”
Woman and child disappeared
The artist sees herself as drawing on the rich tradition of screen printing which has its roots in stenciling – the first fully formed examples of which appear in China during the Sung dynasty (960–1279 AD). Credit is generally given to the artist Andy Warhol for popularizing screen printing or serigraphy as an artistic technique, says Nelun, explaining the word ‘serigraphy’ is a compound word formed from latin ‘sēricum’ (silk) and greek‘graphein’ (to write or draw).
Nelun says working on the screen prints have their own fascination: “I love the sticky ink printing process a bit like oil paints.” Thematically, the collection returns to the subjects that have preoccupied the artist for some time now, what she describes as the theme of “disappearing people and places.” This overarching thought is translated in a series of “news flashes”: a ‘gore crow’ found at the Maradana junction or 4 bodies found on the
Burnt Palmyrah
Pooneryn road. “I do not have an opinion or a moral or a story to tell,” says Nelun, “Just a news flash, to get people interested if they want to be.” Recurring patterns take the form of black burnt Palmyrahs, ghost trees and listening spirits.
This work is very distinct from Nelun’s creations as the designer for her brand Ohe Island, for which she creates everything from sarees and shawls to cushion covers and beanbags. “Ohe is happy and painting is horrid and draining,” she says, but admits she finds herself compelled to do such work nevertheless. “News flashes come up and there is no way of stopping them.”
Nelun’s exhibition will remain open until April 13 at the Barefoot Gallery.