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| Sunday, 18 September 2005 |
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Arts From the South to the North : Building a bridge of brotherhood by Aditha Dissanayake Amaresh Pereira, the young artist from Kandy in whose paintings Carl Muller sees "the burning vision of a Turner, the stark lines of an El Greco, the surrealistic meanings of a Goya and the loving details of a Monet", is planning to hold an exhibition of his work in Jaffna, in an attempt to build a bridge of brotherhood between the youth of the South and the youth of the North. On his return from a recent trip to Jaffna to make the arrangements for the exhibition which will be held at the University of Jaffna with the collaboration of the Students Union of the university, under the auspices of T. Shanathanan, a lecturer at the Department of Fine Arts, Amaresh says he realised there was absolutely no difference between the young people he met in Jaffna and the young people he knows back at home in Kandy. "At first when they saw me they thought I belonged to the military intelligence. But when I explained to them about how I had travelled to Jaffna to make my dream of bridging the gap between those of us in the South and those of us in the North, come true, they agreed to give me their total support". Amaresh believes his brethren in Jaffna do not know what the "real" people of the South are like. "We have not seen them properly and they have not seen us properly". He defines "real" people as young people like him who travel by bus and have cups of tea in kiosks by the side of the road. He recalls a conversation he had with some undergraduates of the University of Jaffna over a cup of tea when all of them had agreed that something should be done to stop "all this nonsense about war". They had realized the futility of having the best cultivatable land in the country covered in landmines and, made the resolution that they will get-together to rebuild the faith they had lost in one another. "Sinhala people are our brothers" Amaresh says his friends in Jaffna had told him, except for the Police. "Kandy youth too are afraid of the Police. I tried to explain" says Amaresh. "I told them its probably the same with youth all over the world. All of us are afraid of the Police". Determined to reach out to the young people in Jaffna through his exhibition, Amaresh says "The conflict should be settled by us. We should not pass it on to the next generation.Those who come after us should know only peace". Exhibition of paintings by Ranga Chandrarathne
The exhibition of paintings by Chandrika Asuramana will be held from September 22 to 26 at the Alliance Francaise Auditorium, Colombo 7. The exhibition will be opened at 6.00 p.m. on September 26 for the public. The paintings for the exhibition are drawn from indigenous plants and fruits and depicts the splendour of nature on canvas. The exhibition will be a novel experience for nature lovers as well as those who appreciate indigenous fruits and plants. It will also be an occasion to view our rich bio-diversity depicted in paintings. It is not surprising that such work of art comes from an artist who hails from a picturesque village, Beligala, in the Kegalle District. Chandrika received her education at Kegalle Balika Vidyalaya and earned a Degree in Fine Arts from the Aesthetic Institute of the University of Kelaniya. She is currently employed as the Teacher of Art at Mawathagama National College. Her speciality is the use of pencil brush, and she possesses an inborn ability to draw trees, flowers and fruit which are part and parcel of nature. She is also skilled in painting clay pots using natural flowers and leaves in their natural shape and size. She is also a skilled fabric painter who has contributed to the Annual Fair Organized by the "George Keyt" Foundation since 1993. Since her first solo exhibition held at Alliance Francaise, she has conducted three successful exhibitions. She is grateful to her arts teacher Mrs. Gunatilake Menike for encouraging her to show her talents as a student and to the Alliance Francaise. |
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