Lost in her own world of art
Scene from London: Saro with her London Eye collage. Pic by Indika Handuwala
Looking through a Kaleidoscope, the patterns are vivid and detailed, but shake it and look again and the patterns would have changed. Similarly, Saro Jay’s exhibition ‘Kaleidoscope of Brush Strokes’, on next weekend at the Lionel Wendt Gallery, has a variety of work but the detail and thought given to each piece unifies them all.
A self-taught artist Saro says art helps her in her personal life. “It’s a way of releasing stress, because you have to concentrate so much on the art you sort of don’t think about other things or worry about things. Like other people meditate, it helps me.”
Saro has had one of her paintings in the prestigious Llewellyn Alexander Gallery, London in their ‘Not the Royal Academy’ summer exhibition where the best of the other paintings submitted that have not been shown by the Academy are exhibited. Having shown her work in local exhibitions in Buckinghamshire where she lives, this is her first solo exhibition, where she will be exhibiting and selling 130 unique pieces.
Always interested in art, it was her aunt’s gift of water colours that got her fired up initially. She went on to do a degree in maths and physics at the University of Colombo, and moving to England, her busy schedule kept her from pursuing her passion for art. But when she started working part time she took the chance to resume painting. Today when she paints she doesn’t want to stop, and often forgets to do anything else, she says.
Not restricted to any one medium, Saro uses acrylic, acrylic ink, watercolours, oil paints as well making collages with paper and acrylic.
As an artist, Saro takes the world around her and interprets it sometimes in an abstract way, and doesn’t believe in merely replicating things she sees. Her collages, made with paper and acrylic paint are her most time consuming and some of her best pieces are from London – the London Eye orange from a sunset. The use of both paint and paper gives the collages a painted and extured look.
Kaleidoscope of Brush Strokes is on at the Lionel Wendt Art Centre on February 15 and 16 from 9.30 a.m. to 8.30 p.m.