Online edition of Sunday Observer

Pala Pothupitiya is an artist who feels that the 'modern' concepts of 'art' and 'craft' have been misinterpreted and who seeks to create a contemporary form of expression which dissolves the boundaries of the two, eliciting a new definition for our contemporary art.

"In colonization, our traditional art was deemed by the conquerors as 'primitive' and 'savage' and they sought to 'civilise' us in European traditions of art," says Pala. "The feudalistic social concepts of labour developed from this attitude and it demeaned our 'original' art as 'skill of hand' and 'sub-standard'."

Pala collaborates with Menika van der Poorten to present an exhibition of uniquely unconventional art works which will be displayed at the Finomenal Space Gallery at Colombo 3 from 4 - 23 September.

His father, Somaweera Pothupitiya, stitched costumes for the Matara tradition of low country dancing and his grandfather, S. Surendra, danced. Though as a child, Pala helped in his father's vocation and dutifully learnt dancing, he gradually came to comprehend that dancing was deemed a lowly tradition socially, with no "greatness" being attributed to it in the Lankan social scale developed to accommodate the European traditions of art. "Ours was termed a handicraft, not an art," says Pala.

The low country dancer performing his traditional dance in his traditional dress.

Pala invests the dancer with a new dress and a new meaning.
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"For a while, I completely suppressed my ancestry in dancing, until I entered the Faculty of Aesthetic Studies to study Art, specialising in Sculpture." There, Pala experienced a transformation when he got to know the artists of the nineties era such as Jagath Weerasinghe. "Through his teachings, I came to realise that wisdom for me lay in my own past and that my true identity lay in my dancing ancestry."

Thea dancer must now explore a new rhythm

Thus began for Pala, a re-exploration for "the dance apparel", which had become an enactment of his own self, from the urban fragments such as yoghurt spoons, bulbs, pen clips, bottle tops and discarded pieces of metal and plastic, thrown away by the metropolitan culture where he was now domiciled.

"My art is a search into my sociological history," explains Pala. "A massive legend of human labour lies behind the 'original costume' worn by the low country dancer who traditionally sews his own costumes and does his own make up from what is available to him from the environment and creates his own psyche. The local art intelligentsia never recognised this labour and it remained a 'craft' for a long time."

Pala perceives Lankan art is an elite commodity. "This elitism does not define the human labour embedded there. Jagath was the first critic to construct a philosophy of art defining the concept of labour and material which goes into its creation. Before the nineties, we spoke of art in a language based in greatness and originality. But this originality does not define our own 'originality' or the local effort gone into what we call 'craft'."

This contemporary vision is evident throughout the creations of the nineties artists. Jagath Weerasinghe uses paddy in his "Wata Vandanawa." Chandragupta Thenuwara elevates the roadside barrel. Anoj Perera features the humble "Kiri Gotu" in his "Barren Woman." Sarath Kumarasiri uses the clothing worn by the young men killed in the 89 terror reign. Such art breaks the boundaries imposed by European art and becomes an expression acquired through one's own life experiences.

Menika- recording a new ‘originality’.

Pala's exhibits are arrayed in the three categories - Ancestral Dress, Self-Portraits and "Rana Viru" (the soldier). His self-portraits construe an expression of himself. The eyeballs reflect his own picture. The portrait in relief is sculpted against a backdrop depicting a map of the village, Mederigama, where he was born; Pallegama, the school he studied; and the Institute at Horton Place where he rediscovered his own legacy. A host of pictures of his father who bequeathed him this legacy, occupies the background to the expression. It is the journey in which he found the true niche where he and his father belonged.

Pala's ancestral dresses of 'kara patiyas', head dresses and waist bands, made of urban remnants, are not pasted but stitched, assembled and threaded through as in 'original' traditional costumes. "Each dress hints at and defines the social class which created it. The viewer can discover different meanings in my ancestral dresses."

"The society creates a meta-physical pedestal for our soldier thus subduing his youth and human ethos such as love and pain, in the culture fabric of Rana Viru," is what Pala tries to explain in his soldier creations in a typical environ, akin to the clouds the Sigiriya maidens rests on. "Even his death has been romanticised and his family is thus deprived of sincere grieving for his death. The pity is our intellectuals and even the clergy contribute to cement this illusion. By my work, I try to show the futility of such isolated deification."

His "head of Shiva" is another contemporary definition of the concept power. "To 'unmodern' Shiva, the God of Power, I have painted his features in colour as found in our traditional sculpture such as the Samadhi Buddha. I depict Siva's power in contemporary material - nails, nuts, a bicycle hub and pieces of iron which carried a political definition of power in the early nineties."

Menika van der Poorten's black and white photographs displayed at the exhibition, investigate an interpretation to the theory of Pala's art. "When I was asked to collaborate with Pala, we worked together quite a lot trying to figure out how it should be done and decided to focus on the practical aspect of it," says Menika. "I chose black and white to create a contrast to his colourful work."

Menika has created a sequence of the functional "paladana" (dressing) aspect of 'kara patiya'. One depicts the traditional 'authentic' low country dancer, dancing in his traditional 'original' rhythms. In the next, Pala dresses ('paladanawa') the dander in his contemporary 'original' kara patiya. The third shows the dancer in this new dress, exploring a new contemporary rhythm of dance. "He must now find his own rhythm. It is not pre-ordained," says Menika. "Though it relates to the tradition, it is an originality of sorts."

The collaborative work of Pala and Menika is a unique contribution to the 'para-modern' rather than 'post-modern' in visual art practice in Sri Lanka and shows the need for a paradigm shift in the way we regard art.