Farewell Noeline
View(s):
Noeline with a ‘Sunshine’ youngster
Well known artist Noeline Fernando passed away this week
I first met Noeline as a student at the renowned Melbourne School of Art – a well-known institute at the time where students were taught to enjoy painting and sculpting under the tutelage of the legendary Cora Abraham. Our paths met often thereafter, mostly at art exhibitions or art workshops. Noeline was also teaching art at the Sapumal Foundation guiding kids and young adults on the path she too once travelled. My son was one of them. Noeline taught them all to first enjoy the medium and to follow the brush to every corner it took them on the large paper spread before them; to draw not always what you see but what you feel. Noeline’s art classes were so natural and fun as it was when Noeline was a student at the Cora Abraham Art Classes.
We later met on numerous occasions when Noeline conducted art camps for vulnerable children. Together, we implemented numerous workshops for the kids at the Sunshine Day Care and Preschool in Trincomalee and for the children affected by the Zion Church bombing in Batticaloa. Noeline’s unique style taught the kids to move around freely and observe the spaces around them, interacting with others.
Noeline was a member of the Young Artist Group and exhibited in Canada and later at the Serpentine Biennale de Paris. She held many solo exhibitions in association with the Lionel Wendt Art Centre, the Sapumal Foundation and the George Keyt Foundation.
More recently, Noeline exhibited her work at the World Open Arts Festival in South Korea and the artist camp and exhibition of the SAARC Region in Sri Lanka.
As the famed Sri Lankan artist the late Neville Weeraratne said, “Noeline has learnt to draw out of children their own pure, unbiased responses to the world around. We have in Noeline an artist who has matured at every level of experience which maybe we see in the many different approaches she makes in her paintings. Noeline Fernando’s style is direct. She enjoys her capacity to re-define structures as in the make of a face of that of a landscape.”
I will miss your company, your incredible talent and the friendship we so much enjoyed. Goodbye my dearest friend. May you rest in peace.
Sharadha de Saram