I’m merely an instrument of my art–Druvinka
Druvinka is exhibiting her work here after 2012
Druvinka’s gaze is locked on something far, far away. She seems oblivious to the things that clutter the austere room in Barefoot where we sit: even the stacked paintings of Barbara Sansoni, Laki Senanayake and her own art (which she completely disowns after she has perfected them).
Druvinka has a carelessly elegant poise, a ‘by-product’ of her spiritual life in India as a mystic and yogi. Often she is photographed with a massive poisonous snake sinuously garlanding her.
That pile of medusa-like dreadlocks, the abundant rings, the red pottu and chic black clothing add to a presence that whisks you to the snowy heights of the Himalayas, her home both spiritual and temporal. Yet who is this unusual mystic, born to a wealthy Sri Lankan milieu and now a nagini, an almost-venerated spiritual healer in India and also one of our major contemporary artists? We met her at Barefoot Gallery prior to Druvinka 2018, her first solo exhibition since 2012.
Druvinka Madawela was born to a family of artists, particularly her father and brother. Painting was instinctive and she was to go on to do her BFA at the Shanthiniketan. India moulded her into a yogi and into the spiritual healer Druvinka Puri Matha Ji (which is another avatar- and so another story).
Druvinka is inspired to create art solely by her own experience and nature; nature- here- not just in the sense of distant mountains or the sea at dusk, but any way in which the great force leaves its mark: even a damp patch on an old wall.
Over the past two decades she has developed a distinctive body of work, “devoted to the deepest mysteries of the human experience, and the transcendent realms beyond”.
Lost in thought: The artist at Barefoot last week. Pix by Amila Gamage
Her work has been exhibited in Sri Lanka, India, London and Malaysia, but she hesitates to recognize a person labelled ‘Druvinka’ or to call herself an ‘artist’. The process of painting she likens to a spirit entering her and working through her. “It’s as if I am just the instrument.”
She prefers to work at night because of its silence. But it is also the time of ‘the spirits’- beings with whom she shares a bond just like the snakes. She performs rituals to summon out spirits that possess people, just as she can dispose of dangerous serpents.
Apart from her pen and ink art, all her work employs the tempera method. She stretches out the canvas and then, on it, rice paper. Then the paint is tempered onto the rice paper layer upon layer. Druvinka uses only paint, water and a brush and executes many pieces at the same time. While a layer of acrylic paint is drying on one canvas she works on another, circumambulating canvases spread across the floor. Many layers of different-coloured acrylics have to go to create a single shade.
After completing each work meticulously, Druvinka abandons them completely. “You can burn it in front of me and I will say nothing; feel nothing; because it’s finished.” She uses words with a beautiful economy filled with meaningful silences.
When asked about the long lapse between the last exhibition and this one, Druvinka explains, “I was hibernating.” This entailed holing up in a secluded place and deep meditation, with least possible communication with the outside world.
Druvinka believes in evolving.Observing her art over the years, one detects the transformation. Her earlier work has been described by critics as “exhibiting tight control: flat planes and square edged boxes which constrained a swirling universe, like narrow windows into outer space”.
In later work, deities and human figures feature prominently, especially the divine feminine- including Lakshmi adorned with dreadlocks and twirling nagas. These figures occur against a backdrop of liquid shadows and cloudy dreamscapes. The earlier relentlessly dark palette has also lightened- to mauves and pinks, and creams and yellows.
As critics have pointed out, many of the symbols she weaves into her art may stem from Hindu mythology, but it would be reductive to read her paintings as emblematic of one religious tradition.
Druvinka 2018 is now on at the Barefoot Gallery until August 5 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays.