3rd August 1997

A Romantic in this Cyber age

By Ravin Guneratne

Jayantha Jinasena’s first exhibition of wildlife paintings will be open to the public from August 7 to 9 of 1997, at the British Council Auditorium, Colombo.

Jayantha Jinasena is first and foremost a lover of nature, in sync with an older earth that was infinitely greener. Disenchanted with the prodigal ways of our day and age that despoil her beauty, he has sought the peace and quietude of the forest glade, and reaffirmed his kinship with the wild. And his paintings are the result of deep communion with its denizens.

Jayantha is an artist with an eye for detail. His brush is a veritable witching wand that transforms paint and water into a "virtual reality." The butterfly nuzzling flower, frozen in mid flutter; soft sheen on serpentine sinousity-his works are cameos of precision and delight.

His draftmanship, naturally, is flawless. He documents the phantasmagoria of nature’s forms, meticulously. Perhaps, partly out of compassion for those city wallahs asphyxiating at the noose-end of corporate neckerchiefs. But wholly out of devotion to that primal spirit which powered our ancient days.

It is not surprising therefore, that his affinity is with the snake. Like the gypsy-shaman, purveyor of a forgotten cult, he frequents the woodland copse, the bamboo grove, the forest path, and probes the undergrowth for his elusive specimens. A magical transferance of their form onto paper in the privacy of his studio, and they are released in the very same area, nay, at the exact spot, from which they were initially collected. In this way the Tao of a locale is never allowed to remain disrupted for long, such is his work ethic.

Jayantha lives in Nawala, at the edge of the fast dwindling tract of marshland separating Colombo from Kotte’s high ground. His story began here, amidst the heady marsh odours and its heaving terrain.

A self-taught artist in a world of "instant talent," Jayantha’s sustained dedication to his art is rare indeed. His vision harks back to the past and an idyllic way of life, in order to illumine our present whose modalities are crumbling all around us. In this sense his work raises a curtain for us, above the smog and asphalt of our daily grind, and whispers to us through the cyberbabble: "Remember...... the ancient of days, the older earth.

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