He likes to describe himself more as a sculptor than a painter, and if one needed any affirmation, it would be that his work was chosen by none other than the great Geoffrey Bawa himself for an exhibition of contemporary sculpture he was organizing titled ‘Objects That Enhance Architecture’, in 1991.
“Fusion” an exhibition by Naureen Naqvi and Michael Anthonisz opens at the Barefoot Gallery on February 12 and will continue till the 22nd. |
Despite his abiding passion for art, it has been an ‘on-off’ thing for Michael Anthonisz, which is why he sees his forthcoming exhibition as a ‘re-entry’ of sorts. For the man widely known in his different personas as swimming champ in his younger days, later renowned swimming coach and corporate figure is determined now to give full vent to a long-cherished urge to let art dominate his life.
 |
| Michael Anthonisz |
He was always an inveterate doodler all through his office days, he admits, pulling out sketches and squiggles on pieces of paper that he has toyed with while at work. Enough there for an exhibition one day, but now the question before him is what he is going to show at a joint exhibition titled ‘Fusion’ that he is holding with Pakistani artist Naureen Naqwi next week at the Barefoot Gallery in Colombo.
Michael Anthonisz is not easy to categorize for his paintings have gone from surreal, to portraits to abstracts. Over the years he has worked with oils, pastels, charcoal, watercolours, mixed media and enjoyed them all. When he decides to sculpt, it may be a mass of chicken wire that he has picked, suffering innumerable cuts and scrapes in the creative process, but the ‘Man’ now standing on his landing, rusting in places, so impressed Bawa that he was ready to commission him to do more.
There was an artistic influence in his early years, memories of paintings in the family home in Galle, his mother too being a talented painter though not pursuing it seriously, he reflects, laughing that “the family were always hoping we were related to J.L.K. Van Dort but we were not – different line”. Always encouraged to experiment while a kid at the Cora Abraham Art School, he however just wanted to draw and it was only later that he began enjoying dabbling in other media. But in the teenage years it was sports that predominated, in his case swimming, where he excelled both at school (S. Thomas College) and national level, going on to represent Sri Lanka from 1969 to 1977, at various international competitions, captaining Sri Lanka and being a national record holder in his chosen events.
He drew caricatures too for a while, so well that they went into the Royal Thomian Big Match souvenir for a couple of years along with another compatriot Noel Jansz’s work. The two of them had a show together with Azira Ismail in 1979 but after that early venturing out, work and swimming kept art on the sidelines.
 |
| 1983 |
Yet, he could never quite be rid of the urge to paint and so it happened that six months after he took his first job as a young executive at Carsons, he decided to quit to paint full-time. That didn’t quite work out for he missed the interaction with people but while studying for his final Chartered Accountancy exams, one painting that preoccupied him for well nigh three months was what he still feels is his masterpiece- a surrealistic, (he prefers to call it visionary) interpretation of Creation. ‘Genesis- The Creation of Woman’ caused a bit of an upset when he showed it at Mudliyar A.C.G.S. Amarasekera’s centenary exhibition – because it was so radically different from all the works exhibited at that show - ‘all these nude figures running around’ he laughs, but it went down well. “I didn’t have an idea really of this when I started, I had just done the face and then the line of the horizon came out and then somehow my sister came to mention Creation and I read the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis and it seemed to telescope in all the things that were there. How there was darkness and God created light and separated the waters. Then all manner of living things -man and woman – lesser creatures going in to form the man, I married all those things, so you could say there’s lots of symbolism.” His paintings turn out to be predictive, he adds, for though it was painted all of 30 years ago, the face in the painting bears some resemblance to his own now.
Though unable to devote as much time as he would have liked to art due to work commitments and his increasing responsibilities in the swimming arena where he coordinated the training of Sri Lanka’s very successful squad for the 1991 SAF Games and then subsequently headed the selection committee for aquatic sports, and then NAASU (National Amateur Aquatic Sports Union), recognition of his artistic abilities was never lacking. On holding his first solo show in 1990 at the Alliance Francaise, he was invited to take it to Kandy and in 1992, the George Keyt Foundation asked him to be part of a joint show of ‘Modern Sri Lanka Painters’ with artists of the calibre of Stanley Kirinde, Seevali Ilangakoon and S.H. Sarath. Since then, there have been regular group exhibitions and in 2004, he curated ‘The Burgher Connection’ a major retrospective of the works of Burgher artists to mark the 400th anniversary of the Dutch arrival in Ceylon. His paintings have also been chosen for various exhibitions abroad, notably in Paris and New York.
 |
 |
| ‘Genesis -The Creation of Woman’ |
The Maid II |
The years of swimming coaching, he says, have given him a keen appreciation of the human form . “Maybe because of my art, I had a good understanding of biomechanics and also the whole time I’m studying figures and the interplay of light and shade, all those kind of things.”
That is very evident in the many portraits and figure drawings, powerful studies of the human form that also show a sensitive perception of his subject. The subjects are varied- time spent recently at the Premadasa Riding School have given him many equinine sketches done in sure swift strokes and a fortnight ago he was at the Kala Pola doing portraits of people, including writers Royston Ellis and Ameena Hussein.
Though his sculptures are fewer by far, the raw emotion seen in ‘1983’, a small work in clay inspired by Black Friday of July ’83 showing a contorted group of figures , each representing the different ethnic groups fighting over the larger one ‘Mother Lanka’ who is crying out in anguish, is clear indication that this is a medium he revels in.
Having last year taken early retirement from John Keells where he was a Vice President and head of the Internal Audit Unit, Michael Anthonisz is determined to catch up on lost time with his painting and sculpture. “It was taking a step into the unknown,” he concedes. But I couldn’t go on sitting on all three stools (art, accountancy and swimming coaching) so let me perch on one stool and see where it goes.” This can only be a happy augury for art-lovers who can look forward to seeing more of his multi-faceted talent in the years ahead.
|
E-mail