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| Sunday, 23 May 2004 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Breathing new life into an ancient art by Lakmal Welabada In 'Mosaic, Madness and Me', Alefiya Akbarally adds new dimensions to an ancient art form. The Hermitage Gallery at Gower Street, Colombo has offered its space to Alefiya to display her Mosaic art from May 29 to 31 from 9.30 am to 6.00 pm.
Alefiya has been in love with Muslim art and architecture since she was a small girl. Her inborn talent for painting hence provoked her to study them in depth. Reading books and touring with her family around the world helped little Alefiya to gain more experience and knowledge not merely in Islamic art, but also in many other art forms. Her recent visits to Italy and Spain refreshed her childhood dreams and memories in Mosaic art, and she saw everything in reality. So she decided to proceed with her passion for Mosaic by studying, researching and mastering the art. Alefiya tried out her first masterpiece with a few pieces of broken crockery which she managed to collect from her homefront and pasted in an art form on a piece of wood. The three months course she followed in Mosaic art in Australia helped her to get a formal training and knowledge of the art. "Mosaic is a very ancient form of art going back to 4000 years or more," she explained. Its development has passed through the Graeco-Roman period. It made a prominent resurgence in the Byzantine period (in Turkey). The Moors brought Islamic Mosaic and tile art to Western Europe around the 8th century A.D... And today examples of this art can be seen in Spain at the Great Mosque at Cordoba and the Alhambra Palace. The Art Nouveau Movement embraced Mosaic art. In Barcelona, Spain, Antoni Gaudi and Joseph Maria generated the art by producing stunning ceramic Mosaics," explained Alefiya. Mingling the ancient styles of Mosaic (like Art Nouveau Movement) with traditional Sri Lankan art forms (like Kandyan, Polonnaruwa and Anuradhapura art forms) Alefiya has tried out many novel designs in her Mosaic work. The sixty works which she hopes to display at her exhibition include mirrors, dining room sets, round coffee tables, chairs and a few other items. Arabic lettering boards, a colourful Sunflower table, a coffee table with a Byzantine spiral (a design of Art Nouveau Movement) and a round stool with colours and designs that resemble to Kandyan 'Sesatha' are among some of her eyecatching exhibits. "Mosaic is not an art form restricted to one particular thing or place. You can use it all over - walls, ceiling, pillars, bathrooms, furniture, curtains, vases, pots - on anything.... It's a very practical art," says Alefiya who hopes to renew or be the pioneer in popularizing Mosaic art in Sri Lanka. "I hope to proceed with an advanced course in Mosaic as soon as the exhibition is over. And I also want to do a course in architecture since it will help me to study ancient Muslim architecture which has also been one of my desires for a long time," she said. Though her present craze is centred on Mosaic, Alefiya has been involved in many other art forms. She took part in the international art camp organised by the George Keyt Foundation in 1999, and 'Nature Photography Competitions' held in 2002 and 2003. In addition she has held several solo and group art exhibitions from time to time. Alefiya hopes to open a website for Mosaic by launching www.akbar.com/mosaicart on May 29. This versatile young woman hopes to go a long way with Mosaic. "It's a time consuming art. Each piece takes three to four days to complete. At present I have one assistant whom I trained. More than profit what I gain from Mosaic is self satisfaction," she concluded. |
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"Mosaic is a decorative art form using 'tesserae' - small pieces
of tiles, marble, ceramic, glass, mirror, beads, buttons, stone or any
kind of broken material - to create beautiful designs on any surface. The
medium could be almost anything - cement, wood or cloth for example,"
said Alefiya giving a brief but a descriptive introduction to Mosaic.
