His raw material is rock

Meeting Pushpananda Weerasinghe after nearly 25 years at the Alliance Francaise during his exhibition was a pleasant surprise. Then he was essentially a sculptor. We worked closely when he did a mural in beaten metal for Ceylon Tobacco Company's foyer, meeting regularly at his village studio off Nittambuwa. It was fascinating to see him turning out rather unusual artistic creations.

He now concentrates on painting. That's where he began. His recent exhibition had around 50 paintings and each one of them had a fresh aspect. He had used earth colours and the paintings were sober and pleasing to the eye. 'I look for my raw material from natural soils and rock. That's what was used traditionally. It's after spending a lot of time studying the work done in between the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa periods that I developed my own style of painting,' he said. An alchemist researcher, he crushes rock to obtain a range of distinctive reddish hues .

'Style is a question of vision. It has something to do with feelings and is not merely related to techniques. For the artist, sensation is the most important thing. This sensation can be transformed into an artistic text. That is a personal vision, a pictorial enchantment. In short, the paintings are not mere chronicles. The artist accounts for what he has seen, perceived and understood,' he says.

Paintings he has just completed on the 'Daha Ata Sanniya' and'Kolam' (24 in all) were a special feature of the exhibition. He did these after being inspired by a collection of masks at an exhibition in Germany. These were masks used by our ancestors at 'thovil' ceremonies to heal the sick. They were quite different to the ones turned out for sale. 'The ones I saw contained many aspects of human reactions to pain. When you are sick, you react in so many ways. These feelings are captured in our traditional masks,' he said.

Now in his late fifties, Pushpanada can look back with pride on his achievements over the past three decades. He has had over a dozen exhibitions - both locally and globally, won at least four State awards - three for sculpture and one for painting and sculpture and has been an academic at the Kelaniya University, an art director in films, served as a member of the Arts Council and gained recognition with the award of 'Kalabhushana' . His wooden reliefs, concrete decorations, beaten metal murals, terra-cotta sculptures, fresco murals, bronze statues and paintings adorn a host of hotels, banks and other public and private sector offices.

Pushpananda invites those interested to drop in at his studios on the Kandy Road at Yakkala and see forthemselves how he and his students work.

See the better dramas

Make your way to the John de Silva Theatre over the next few days and enjoy good theatre. Dramas which have been selected for the second round of this year's drama festival, are now being staged there.

Tonight it's R. M. S. Bandara's 'Cherry Watta ' and tomorrow it will be Thumindu Dodantenna's 'Arundathi'. The other plays are: K. B.Herath's 'Vasudeva' (March 14), Sunil Chandrasiri's 'Bheema Bhumi' (15), Janapriya Jayasinghe's 'Ada Sanda Ratriya' (16), Upul Tilanka Hewage's 'Kundalakeshi ' (17), Bandula Jayawardena's 'Swarnamali ' (18), Buddhika Damayantha's 'Bandi Merila Ne' (20) and Dharmasiri Bandaranayake's 'Trojan Kanthawo' (21).

It's a good selection of originals, translations and adaptations this year. Another feature is the mix of young and seasoned dramatists. Among the young ones are those who have done well at youth drama festivals bagging many awards.

A Satyajit Ray film

It's not often that we get a chance of enjoying a Satyajit Ray creation. So don't miss tomorrow's screening of 'Agantuk' (The Stranger) at the Indian Cultural Centre at 6.30 pm.

'Agantuk' made in 1991 was the last of the 31 films Ray made. Based on his own short story, 'Atithi' , Ray wrote the screenplay, directed the music and the film. Barun Raha was in charge of photography and art direction was by Ashoke Bose. The cast included Ajit Banerjee, Despanker Dey, Mamata Shankar, Dhriti Chatterjee, Utpal Dutt and Robi Ghosh.

The film in Bengali is sub-titled in English.

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