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| Sunday, 17 October 2004 |
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Segar blending the realistic with the abstract
Segar's 26th one-man exhibition of paintings will be held at Felix Gallery, Colombo, from October 20 to 30. Segar who began his career as an accountant and a public relations officer at the Elephant House in the early eighties began his odyssey as an artist by painting greeting cards during his leisure time. His first painting was the 'fish monger' who stopped by at his dwelling daily. This showed that Segar was a people oriented person, and most of his paintings still reflects this aspect. He refined his technology by using his biology and chemistry notebooks to sketch human figures in different poses.
Unlike artists who were inclined to draw devout religious art and iconography Segar followed the modern artists who are free to choose from a bewildering variety of styles, realism, impressionism, expressionism, surrealism, cubism, abstraction, abstract expressionism, pop-art, an neo-realism. In the process Segar originated his own style effective effects in cubism as his famous subjects were physics and mathematics. When Segar made painting his profession, he began to study its mode and style all by himself. His interest in photography and plastic arts urged him to the habit of reading a lot on painting from the Encyclopedias. This provided the necessary framework for a self disciplined study and practice of the art. Shades of amber toning into subtle yellow and brown are Segar's forte in blending colour. Segar's paintings are an unusual visual experience in that they are a combination of realistic and abstract. The angular lines reflect Cubism, which has its roots in Paris. The real style of his paintings is 'figurative cubism' he says. The philosophy behind his style of art, even to the extent of tracing the evolution of his love for cubism goes to his early days of cramped living in a housing estate in Colombo. However he faithfully holds on to his style and gives the reason that if a professional painter goes on changing his style, he would loose his identity. Segar loves the works of artist Ganesh Pyne of India and Vincent Manansala of Philippine. He derives his inspiration from life, and tries to depict his emotional feelings through colour and composition. Like many other artists of his ilk, Segar is somewhat temperamental at times. For his subjects, like Tea Pluckers, Weavers and Dancers, he uses a fair degree of stylisation. Painting oriental women has been his favourites theme. Among many of his other paintings are women in various moods. He makes triangular shapes lock into one another, to meaningfully break up the human anatomy in an effective manner. During 1992, in an interview with a newspaper, Segar made his comment about the paintings of the Sri Lankan artists not being featured on the cover page even in the Asian edition of the Reader's Digest. It was such a coincidence that his painting titled 'Three Tea Pluckers' appeared in the back cover of the February 1998 issue of Reader's Digest, along with his photograph in the 2nd page. His desire is that paintings of living Sri Lankan artists should also be promoted in the international art auctions such as Sotheby and Christie's in New York. Beauty within beauty
'The Beauty Captured Within', an exhibition featuring more than sixty oil paintings by Dr. Jude Nirajith Gurusinghe will be held at the Harold Peiris Gallery at Lionel Wendt from October 22 to 24. Dr. Jude is a self taught artist, who over the past years experimented with various styles and works of the masters in order to find out various factors which lead to creativity firmly believes that artists can make this world a better place through their creations and make people happy.
The 'Beauty Captured Within' is his first solo exhibition, proceeds of which will be used for a Lion service project on sight conservation. Charitha Hathak Charitha Hathak, Wilson Gunaratne's unique political satire hits the boards again on Friday at 7 pm at the Bishop's College Auditorium.
The story is centred around an aeroplane of Dreamland Airways, that has been grounded. The pilot and her co-pilot are trying desperately to understand and correct the problem with the help of the best (or so they believe) minds, both local and foreign. Even the soothsayers have been called in to assist. But there seems to be no solution in sight. And all the while the poor passengers sit around watching a cricket match (surprise surprise!) and placing their trust in the pilots. All proceeds from the show will go towards the work of Ruk Rakaganno, the Tree Society. Established nearly 30 years ago the society is working to protect Sri Lanka's beautiful forests through raising appreciation and awareness of the beauty and importance of these forests and through tree planting and lobbying. Ruk Raks is currently carrying out a schools awareness campaign 'Tree of Life' with less privileged schools in and around Colombo and is also working with the Colombo Municipality to protect the trees of Colombo while also protecting citizens from the dangers of falling trees. Funds from the concert will go towards establishing a nursery of Sri Lankan plants to be used in an ongoing islandwide tree planting campaign. |
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| Produced by Lake House |
Donavan, the Dutch connoisseur valued Segar's painting so much that he
bought the first painting. A couple of his paintings also occupied the art
gallery of renowned artist Senaka Senanayake.
He believes art could change people for the better and considers this
as his mission. Dr. Jude has won many prizes in art starting from his
school days at St. Joseph's College, Colombo 10. Inspired from his
mother's water colour paintings, he learnt many vital techniques of oil
paintings through books.
Having had 395 showings in the last 4 years since its creation.
Charitha Hathak is still holding audiences spellbound with its special mix
of satire and thought provoking humour.
