Real people....forgotten lives

For most artists, colour is an infinite resource where restrictions seldom, if ever, apply. But Nelum Harasgama sees things a bit differently. For her, there is a responsibility attached to using colour. Shades of brown and white texture her canvases, outlining a sweeper, a watcher, a mad woman. Sable and eggshell combine to create parched, minimalist spaces. And everywhere there is the suggestion of stillness and silence.

'All colour comes from what's around us. We didn't make it. Never did any human being make any colour. So I feel that the blues and greens are best kept in the sky and in plants ... I'm frightened to use them because I may not use them properly.' But browns and whites are safer ground for Nelum. 'I don't use these so badly,' she says.

Without exception, Nelum's paintings are like open doors, forcing the eye to scan vertically, before moving out into the distance. Within the last year she has begun painting landscapes, more specifically, tanks. Yet even these are viewed on the vertical. In the end, it's a question of perspective. The vertical actually draws the gaze deep into the landscape, like an arrow piercing the horizon. As she explains, 'it goes on till you can't see anymore.'

But the bulk of Nelum's work focuses on people. Their gaunt bodies stretch upward along the canvas, captured in a moment of repose. 'It's not a story,' she says, 'it's one moment. It's like travelling past him in a double-cab or something and catching one moment in that person's life.' Above all, these paintings are about persons, each one an intimate introduction. She insists that each individual in her paintings is 'an actual person. It's not something from my head. It's a fisherman, or it's a watchman ... It's somebody. It's not nobody."

'They're just the normal people who have been there for thousands of years, who are slowly now being pushed away ... like the ordinary farmer in the field, or a Tamil woman sweeping the streets. Now they wear Abans uniforms and go around with trolleys.' So do these paintings speak of revolution? Nelum is quick to answer that one. 'I think political statements are ... for people who don't have anything to say.'

But her subjects reside in a different world. A less hurried world where each movement is executed with simple beauty. A world which is almost extinct. 'We think we're extraordinary whereas we're not. We're very ordinary. They are extraordinary not only because there are so few of them, it's just that they live life better than us.' And then, as if admitting that such people really don't exist anymore, she switches to the past tense. 'They may have been poorer than us, but they were content with what they had.'

In the early days, Nelum 'painted' with coloured pencils because, at the time, these were more practical and easier to use. But working with pencil is tedious, so eventually she switched to oil and canvas. And the difference between her earlier work and her paintings today? 'They were not real. They were just feelings ... like a line from the Bible or a play ...' Today Nelum paints what she seesare real people, capturing and recording moments of beauty from forgotten lives.

Nelum Harasgama's work is on exhibition at Gallery 706, Bambalapitiya from April 19 to May 2.

Fashion

Our cover girl this week is svelte model Uschi who displays outfits created by Senaka de Silva who also did her make-up. Uschi's hairstyles were done by Wimal of Salon Ramzi and she was photographed for the Mirror Magazine by Mettasena

The 'Songs of Everyman" a production of the lower school of S. Thomas College went on the boards of the Bishop's College auditorium on April 9. The inclement weather did not deter an enthusiastic audience of parents, friends and the music loving public from turning up to watch the performance which featured songs from well-loved musicals like 'The Lion King', "Whistle Down the Wind' and 'Mary Poppins'. Mirror photographer Dunstan Wickremaratne captured these shots of the audience.

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