Determination in their strokes

By Ayesha R. Rafiq

Far away from the hustle and bustle of Colombo, in villages where bottle lamps and not electric lights come alive at dusk, young artists bend their heads low over yet another painting as they try to perfect the lines and nuances to paint pictures coming from their souls.

And their work is up on the walls of the Art Gallery today at the exhibition of the Nawa Kalakaruwo or New Artists sponsored by the George Keyt Foundation.

The artists, many of them from rural backgrounds have poured their hearts out onto the canvas. And through these untutored lines, one sees a glimmer of talent and emotion reaching out and touching hearts, which the best of tutors would find hard to teach.

The paintings range from the simple to the complicated, from conventional to modernistic and from the peaceful to the tortured, but through all the variance what stands out is a determination to succeed and "make it" among the better known city artists.

While some of the paintings reflect the peace and quiet that must be abundant far away from the noise and pollution, many of them carry titles such as "Start of the Storm", "Sacrifice" "Memory", "Finding Relief" and "Woman with her Dreams."

As 28-year-old Neil Rajakaruna from Ratnapura said, while the paintings may be interpreted differently, his and many other's paintings reflect the frustration youth feel at the things beyond their reach . A lack of material he says, leads to the artists sometimes having to turn to more creative materials to express their thoughts, such as entangled string to express a frustrated soul and pens, newspaper and papier mache to express other moods.

This exhibition of over 125 paintings of artists from around the country, depicts a wealth of hope and ambition, hope to be noticed and ambition to climb to greater heights. A hope and ambition which need to be nurtured by all those who can appreciate and foster their creative efforts.

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