Women in repose and movement; landscapes windswept and still
View(s):
Hummingbirds
An Exhibition of Paintings by Suwanitha Senanayake at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery will be on from November 2-4
The very modern house that Ranjith Senanayake, the least known of the children of Dudley Sena-nayake’s brother Robert, has built, is full of wonderful old family photographs. But amongst these are modern paintings which add splashes of colour amidst the dignified black or sepia and white of the pictures.
I was impressed to find these were by his wife Suwanitha, a grand-daughter of the least known of the brothers prominent during and after the First World War. DS and FR went into politics, DC kept the family solvent, just as later Robert kept Dudley solvent when, unlike modern politicians, he spent his money on the people, not making them pay for him.
Having admired those paintings, I saw more when Suwanitha provided illustrations for her son Vasantha’s first book, the epic poem Transcending Sita. That included several portraits of Sita in vari-ous moods, including ‘Tortured Lady’ which features in the exhibition.
For Suwanitha has finally decided to have an exhibition on her own, the first since 1980. She exhibited in group events in between, but the current range of work and the different media she uses war-rant her own show.
There is a wide range of style and of subject matter, including portraits of women captured in repose and in movement. Contrasting with the static beauty of the pictures in the first book are those she provided for the cover of Vasantha’s second book, Daughters of the Dervish. These creatures are fluid in their movements, exemplifying the evolving and revolving cocktail of emotions and thoughts which constitute the book.
Tortured soul
Then we have a whole host of landscapes, windswept and still, like the ladies. ‘Serenity’ seems to me to be nothing of the sort, three trees tossing their heads against a lowering sun, as vibrant as ‘Rain Forest’ with its much more vivid colour. Then there is the tranquil ‘Church’, and the spreading ‘Shady Grove’ where the use of perspective reminded me of Ivor Hitchens’ walks through woods.
The collages are fascinating. ‘Togetherness’ has cranes of different shades against a mysterious back-ground suggesting hidden depths as Chirico does. Very different is ‘Lifestyles’ with figures like those in tapestries of the Portuguese period in a many layered house amidst which an orange tree blooms.
Suwanitha also sometimes ages her backgrounds so they look like frescoed wood, a lordly Ganesh superimposed on layers suggesting other figures, a girl with a flower with tapestry behind her.
Movement and repose combine in ‘Hummingbirds’, as they do in a still life that is nothing but still, with flowers ready to burst out in different directions. That quality has survived the years, for the doves in the picture on the cover of the brochure of her 1980 exhibition, perched on a branch, also seem ready to take off, exemplifying like the hummingbirds an artist focusing on the immediate in the midst of the transcendent.
-Rajiva Wijesinha
Searching for an ideal partner? Find your soul mate on Hitad.lk, Sri Lanka's favourite marriage proposals page. With Hitad.lk matrimonial advertisements you have access to thousands of ads from potential suitors who are looking for someone just like you.