Twisted beauties

By Yamini Sequeira

Royal blue, burnished amber and mysterious greens wink as they catch the light-coloured everyday wine and beer bottles in unknown shapes. Sinuous and curved, some single, some intertwined in harmony, some shying away from each other. You catch your breath as you take in the myriad shapes and hues twisted into such aesthetic harmony. It can't be, I say, casting a glance over the array of seeming sculptures. Ordinary bottles? Twisted into such serpentine figures?

The artiste Maurice de Silva assures me hurriedly, convinced I'm having a seizure, "Yes, they are just bottles, your everyday wine, beer and brandy bottles." I stare at the glorious spectacle before my eyes, aghast at the scant respect with which one has treated such specimens in the past. Maurice de Silva has more fascination than that for the objects of his creative explorations. He spends hours scouring the cache of bottles from used bottle-sellers for the right colour, the right thickness, that 'just right' bottle that can be transformed under his skill into a work of art.

The fascination for this art of sculpting bottles into numerous shapes, some long, some curved, some twisted, is one Maurice has carried with him over an interminable 20 years. Those many years ago, Maurice had seen a similar art being used in Angola, East Africa. This simple art of transforming an ordinary bottle into an object of beauty fired his imagination but it was only after 20 years, firmly ensconced in Sri Lanka, that he first attempted it a year and a half ago. As in all initial creative efforts, the first attempt resulted in disappointment and about 200 broken bottles that little resembled those beautiful objects he yearned to create. It is interesting to note at this point that Maurice has received no formal artistic training and claims not to have an artistic bone in his body. "Aah," one thinks to oneself, "the man doth jest." After one has had a glimpse of some of the bottles, it's hard to believe his modest statement!

But much or probably all of his artistic inspiration is derived from his partner, in marriage and in art, Yamuna. She in fact, is the artistic one, exhibiting a fine skill with anything creative. "All the bottles are given their finishing touch by me," smiles Yamuna, "I give some a burnished effect to add a touch of mist and decorate others with beads, buttons, dried flowers and other bric-a-brac."

At a trade fair last year, they had displayed a couple of their sculptured bottles and were a little taken aback at the enormous interest people showed in them. So this year, the de Silvas will create 1,000 bottle sculptures for display at the Trade Fair organised by the Aitken Spence Group at the Viharamahadevi Park at Stall No. 301 from December 16 - 20.

Some of the bottles are pure poetry in motion, frenzied in some places and languid at others. The pure simplicity of the entire idea is what catches the viewer by his jugular and makes him see beauty in something so ordinary as a bottle. The duo usually hunt out coloured bottles but are at times forced to work with colourless ones. Yamuna has added versatility to the collection by attaching some to straw baskets that can be hung or to be used as candlesticks and centrepieces. Little did the duo realise a year ago, when they experimented with turning bottles into amazing shapes, that it would be an artistic journey of this magnitude. But what is evident is the pleasure and joy the middle-aged couple derive from their foray into bottle sculptures, poised as they are to spring from the threshold of anonymity into the arena of public display.

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