Charmaine Mendis has been fortunate enough, to have been born to parents who recognized the value of nature and taught her to appreciate its wonders. From an early age she went on regular trips to the jungle. The jungle is where she is happiest. Even now an escape into the wilds is her means of surviving the concrete jungle.
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| Inspired: The three artists at work with their guru |
Minha Mahushukeen has travelled to many parts of the world and made it a point to visit many of the best known Art Galleries, and also had the good fortune to see many exhibitions of contemporary international artists. Although she appreciates all that she has seen, she still finds that Nature is her best inspiration.
Dila Weerasinghe has studied Art & Design in the United States and has worked in the fashion industry, which gave her the opportunity to design and develop products. United by their common love for nature and art, the three will present ‘Vruksha’, an exhibition of their black and white line drawings, together with their mentor Karunasiri Wijesinghe, from May 27-30 at the Lionel Wendt.
The catalyst in bringing about an exhibition of the work of these three artists has been Mr. Wijesinghe whose exhibition, initially inspired Charmaine and then Minha to learn under him, to be joined later by Dila. Charmaine started in 2004, Minha joined in 2005 and Dila in 2009.
“We originally started drawing trees in the garden, learning about the play of light and shade, and the way to get the various angles of perspective right, especially branches which tend to drift off in so many directions. Mr. Wijesinghe also explained how the texture of the various barks of trees could be captured on paper, and that each tree had its own distinctive pattern,” said Charmaine.
”When we had exhausted the resources of the garden, we went on day trips out of Colombo, to areas that had an abundance of trees. We looked for different types of trees.
Later on we spent days in Yala, steeped in its special atmosphere, going to different areas of the park to capture the many species of trees. Although we enjoyed our field classes, our teacher was a hard taskmaster and it was certainly no picnic,” she said.
We have really enjoyed every minute of working under his direction,” Charmaine added.
Mr. Wijesinghe is a leading Sri Lankan artist, who has developed his own original style.
He has had eight solo exhibitions and has participated in many group exhibitions both here and abroad. |
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