Isuri Dayaratne
Isuri abandoned a possible career in maths for one in the arts and hasn’t looked back since. With no previous experience other than “doodling on notebooks” the young artist took a one year foundation class in drawing and painting and then enrolled at Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio, where she’s now studying illustration. “I’ve always loved doodling little characters and thinking of different stories for them and by studying illustration I get to do just that,” she says.
Isuri describes her playful, colourful caricatures as “cartoony” and continues to be inspired by things she sees in Sri Lanka, “I always try to incorporate a bit of home in to the art I create.” She’s currently part of her college in-house Design Group where she serves as a graphic designer, handling print, web and media graphic design work and is also hard at work on her own stop motion animated short.
When she graduates in May, she hopes to find a job in the animation industry as a visual development artist or character designer. “I’ve always loved animation and I remember being so inspired by all the cartoons and animated feature films I used to watch when I was kid, I wanted to be the one who got to create all those interesting characters and stories.”
See more: (http://cargocollective.com/isuri)
Himansu Perera
When Himansu returned to Sri Lanka with a
degree in Animation and Graphic Design from RMIT in Melbourne, it was with one clear goal in mind – to promote digital art. “I don’t think digital art is as appreciated as it should be. Actually scrap that, I don’t want to just promote digital artists, I’d like to promote everybody.”
Also dear to his heart is his desire to support children struggling with serious illnesses. All the money he has collected from the sale of his artworks at his first exhibition went to a little girl diagnosed with terminal organ failure. It’s a big part of his reason for coming back home: “Everyone who wants to change things and help people, if they leave, then there’s nobody left to do the helping,” he says.
As one of the newest members of the Collective of Contemporary Artists, Himansu’s work was recently part of the CoCA exhibition at the Colombo Art Biennale.
His large, sprawling canvases dominated one end of the Maradana Warehouse Project. “My art is feeling centric,” he explains, “It’s rooted in what I’m feeling right now. What you see is dark and macabre and what not, but if you really look at it - this is going to sound pretentious, I know – but you can try to get into what I was thinking at that point - which you don’t have to, because it will look cool by itself – but you’ll know how I was feeling, whether I was at peace or frustrated.”
Though he does occasionally draw and paint on real canvases, most of his work is done “sitting in front of the computer screen with a graphic tablet in my hand for hours on end.”
Currently, Himansu works for C3 Labs in Colombo.
Humaira Thalayan
Humaira’s idea of motivating herself to do what she really loved was to quit her job. Having graduated with a degree in Business Computing, she enrolled in the reputable Vancouver Film School to study 3D Animation and Visual Arts. “Then I came half a world away to try and do what I love,” Humaira says. After graduation, she landed the “best first job anyone could ask for,” as an animator for a company called Wrinkled Pants Software.
It’s where she works now. The iPad applications she creates rely on stories and activities to help underachieving elementary and secondary school kids improve their reading skills. They’re a hit with schools in Vancouver, where they’re bought in bulk. Humaira says the hugely successful projects have been considered a breakthrough in learning apps.
Though she loves her work, Humaria has bigger plans. She loves 3D Animation and says she wants to “bring to the screen what we don’t normally see”. It’s the most fun she’s ever had. “Getting into a mindset of a child and trying to create animation that would hold their attention and keep them entertained is really liberating,” Humaira says. She hopes eventually to return to Sri Lanka and open her own studio where she can teach art and animation.
“This is a rapidly growing industry and I would like to get my country involved in it,” says Humaria. It’s clear she likes to dream big, saying, “I would also love to receive an academy award for best animated feature or animated short. I know it’s a huge dream, but we’ve got to dream in ridiculous amounts, then at least getting halfway there would be an amazing place to be.”
|
E-mail
