We meet a dapper Eric sporting a silk cravat in kingfisher orange, blue and black. The veteran designer wears many hats being also hotelier, bibliophile and art connoisseur…

It all began in the rambling gardens of his youth, where birds blended with kitul fronds and palms. In his nature paintings overflowing with detail where flamingos and blue magpies and frangipani and orchids abound, one sees his exuberant love for colour and tropical nature, also the perfect summation of his batik designs.

Coming from an estate-owning family, Eric schooled at St. Xavier’s Marawila (his hometown), St. Benedict’s Kotahena and St. Sebastian’s Moratuwa.

Though he secured a place at the University of Peradeniya in the Arts Faculty, the creative gene held sway and he instead entered Heywood, after which he went to the London School of Fine Art for two years where he met some Indonesian students and was inspired to go to the archipelago in search of that traditional art.

The Indonesian and Malaysian chapter in his life was pivotal, where he imbibed batik. He says that in Indonesia and Malaysia, batik was a way of life: “wearing batik to office two days a week is compulsory and students can study batik in university up to the PhD level”.

 

Coming back he joined his cousin Nihal Fernando at Studio Times, and even today his batiks are actually mostly rendered from his own photos. While at Studio Times, he also helped organise the first exhibition of that child prodigy Senaka Senanayake (then a young boy at Royal College).

The brush with Senaka was pivotal (as you see comparing the two artists’ work) but Eric’s nature art always had more detail, groaning under the thick intermingling of fauna and flora so that it would take an hour to scrutinise properly.

Eric recalls working with Ena (Aluwihare) de Silva too, in the 70s when he helped with the Bentota Beach Hotel’s ceiling, and also redid the famed Oberoi Hotel atrium banners when Ena’s own had got time-worn.

Pointing out that there was no ‘competition’ with Ena and others like Yolande Aluwihare Holm, Eric emphasises that he did his own thing, and also all of them were one-of-a-kind.

Eric today has bequeathed most of his businesses to his three sons and takes pleasure in dabbling in what he loves – the artistic side.

Eric’s wife Leoni is herself a fashion designer and ‘dye master’ having studied the subject in Germany and Malaysia.

Their six-decade batik saga was not without lapses and hiccups. In times when the tourism industry floundered they managed to weather the difficult times with the family nest-egg.

In the 70s, under Mrs. Bandaranaike’s regime, dyestuffs could not be imported but they managed with the ‘quota system’ where if you earned foreign exchange, material could be brought down through the  Ministry of Industries.

Amongst Eric’s late friends he names Geoffrey Bawa, Laki Senanayake and George Keyt. He travels a lot still and loves visiting galleries and bookshops across the world.

Eric would love to bring batik in Sri Lanka to the level it occupies in Malaysia and Indonesia. “I want to encourage (youth) to carry forward this industry,” he says. He will have his collection of art and design books (amongst them some rare gems like Ancient Flags of Sri Lanka) available in the gallery for students to browse through.

Today he takes great pleasure in his garden at Marawila which is some three and a half acres filled with fruit trees and fauna. He was one of the first to bring down Dalmatians and also to breed Dobermans and Boxers.

“We will not allow batik to die,” says Eric adamantly. With his family who though all being professionals are also passionate artists, and the new gallery, they are on a journey to ensure their legacy thrives…

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