Coming together for the love of art
Fascination with wild cats: Anya’s ‘family of lions’
Teruni
When Anya Ratnayaka picked up a paintbrush as a little tot, Teruni Wikramanayake was thrilled. “She taught me to draw my first bird,” smiles Anya in remembrance. “She said ‘this is where the triangles go, and these are nicer colours.’” You could say that Teruni, Anya’s aunt from her mother’s side, was the young artist’s first art teacher of sorts. It’s only fitting that years later the duo would hold their first joint exhibition titled ‘Wild and Wonderful’ together.
They’ve always been quite close, although wildly disparate in their work. While Anya progressed from her initial brush with art into a teenager who gave up, because “she couldn’t be bothered” and then once again picked up the paintbrush “to avoid studying for my Biometrics final”, Teruni made steady progress with her painting. She has learnt from several accomplished teachers, including most recently Professor Sarath Chandrajeeva. A stay-at-home mum and wife, Teruni finds herself drawn to abstract art-this is what she has practised for years and she aims to finish a painting every week.
Colours and layers: Teruni’s abstract titled ‘Faluda’
Anya is a Wildlife Researcher for whom painting is a stress reliever, what she turns to at the end of a long day. Currently focussed on the conservation of fishing cats, Anya works with the Department of Wildlife to raise awareness and conserve the urban wetlands in and around Colombo that these fishing cats are generally found in. “I’m utterly obsessed with them,” she grins. She finds herself drawing a fair number of these majestic, spotted wild cats using a technique known as stippling, the practice of creating a work of art by finely dotting the form onto the canvas. It takes hours, requires a massive amount of patience, and is “perfect for a detail-oriented person like me,” we’re told.
Anya
Teruni’s work is less structured, working itself out on canvas without any prior planning. “I don’t think about it before painting,” she shares. “If I’m not happy with the result I’ll just paint over it until I am.” She finds inspiration in the work of American painter Jackson Pollock. Anya, on the other hand, is “the kind of artist who doesn’t know a thing about other artists!” Painting is simply a form of stress relief, she says. “Oh gosh, I haven’t read a single book on art,” she tells her aunt with a certain amount of horror, and they both laugh.
Neither have exhibited jointly before (Anya only vaguely remembers being part of a group exhibition as a 12-year-old), although Teruni has formally exhibited her work twice before. “It’s always nerve wracking to put your work out there for other people to look at,” she says of the soul-baring process. The last time she exhibited in 2012, she sold 13 paintings. Anya too is slightly nervous because “it took me a long time to let other people see my work,” she says.
If there is one thing that they’re both looking forward to unequivocally, it’s working and exhibiting together. The ‘Wild’ is for Anya’s fascination with all wildlife, and ‘Wonderful’ is…well, simply because “it just sounds nice!” they laugh.
‘Wild and Wonderful’ is on October 11 and 12 from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery.