Pathum’s railway stations are back with more colour and movement
An ode to the present moment: From Pathum's latest exhibition
Pathum Gamage is back with more of his railway sagas. After a successful exhibition in April, the artist will brighten the walls of Paradise Road Gallery Café with work that is a startling move away from his former choice of colours – which was limited to say the least – depicting colonial railway stations in chromes and blacks and with the motif of the ‘hora’ seed.
The hora seed, from his youth (his school in Karandeniya had a soaring hora tree), is a symbol of a vagabond but also solitude. The mysterious ‘dark lady’ who featured in the first exhibition is mostly absent here.
The new exhibition, says Pathum will be a continuance, some of what he could not portray in the first exhibition– things of which he ‘only gave a hint’.
While the first exhibition titled A Journey Within was more expressionist, the new one is distinctly abstract.
The new exhibition concentrates on movement at a railway station such as the disturbed chaos in the station when a train pulls up.
Looking through the oeuvre, Pathum points out how, in what seems like a melee of very colourful strokes, there are the arms of railway station chairs, the movement of chairs and distorted, twisted railway lines and sleepers.
Pathum Gamage. Pic by Akila Jayawardena
His main point of anchorage used to be the Peradeniya station, where he would voyeuristically observe the ‘drama’ of the station, sketchbook in hand from an unobtrusive corner.
“I see how people get excited when a train arrives and are also rather selfish. I also at the same time show the shortcomings of our public transport system – the harshness of it.”
While the first exhibition depicted the architecture of our (colonial) railway stations, the present one is an ode to the present moment – the experience of the ‘here and the now’.
Pathum says he is grateful to Shanth Fernando of Paradise Road and his teacher, the veteran Chandraguptha Thenuwara for their support.
‘A Journey Within 2’ will be on from August 8 to September 4 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Paradise Road Gallery Café.
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