Upasena Gunawardena, academic painter

Today extremely individualistic art is almost the rule among serious and independent painters. On the other hand, art that is popularly termed academic and is described by its advocates as traditional and sometimes as that which alone is sane or competent or healthy is needed far from any seriously maintained academic tradition. In fact, the genuine academic painter who is able to express himself fully with a great tradition and with a complete understanding of its possibilities and limitations is a very rare person indeed and a fortunate one. Such a painter is Upasena Gunawardene. He was born on January 12, 1937 in Galle, the southern capital of Sri Lanka. On completion of higher education at Mahinda College, Galle, he joined the Government College of Fine Arts to study drawing, painting and sculpture. While as a student at the Government College of Fine Arts in 1958 he held his first one-man exhibition at the Colombo Art Gallery, depicting the verses of 'Sela Lihini Sandesaya' Kavya, a book of Sinhala poems comprising 108 verses.

In 1959 he went to India for further studies and joined the Fine Arts Faculty (Kala Bhavan) Visva Bharathi University, Santiniketan, India, land rich in cultural traditions, under the tutelage of Nandalal Bose and obtained the Diploma in Fine Arts.

While wining many awards, Bronze star certificate and certificate of merit for paintings exhibited in London he won a sliver medal from the Royal Drawing Society London for the painting entitled Pilgrims to Mihintale at the Royal Academy's 60th annual children's exhibition.

Upasena's firm belief is constant application and experiments to improve the quality of his work. The basic truth is amply demonstrated by his work. He had been working hard on canvas over the last four decades. Upasena has brought on the canvas the true environment of nature by the use of sober colours. He has been successful in painting the various aspects of life of the ordinary man and cleverly captured the mood of men and women in the particular situations that he has selected.

Beautiful as many of his pictures are, in which so much of the subject is described by a few delicate, precise lines, some of them enclosing sober monochrome washes, others simply areas of virgin paper on canvas. It is upon his most intransigently abstract works that his reputation will finally depend. As years advanced he created beauty on canvas while his art kept on rising to greater heights. In his heyday he had painted the vanity of the rich and depicted the humility of the poor-the village peasants and fisher-folk and religious scholars at prayers.

An eloquent instance is the painting titled "Reading from the scriptures" in which he has got the weary, but devoted Upasakas listening to the reading of the Dhamma. Choosing sober colours for this particular painting, Upasena has brought out the gloomy atmosphere of the late night while the oil lamps fade one by one.

Religion and art remained his two absorbing passions. Though rarely a temple-goer, he was always a profound worshipper. His studio was his shrine and his canvases were devout prayers of the brush-hymns of adoration to the glory and the beauty of the world.

The Lanka Mahajana Kala Mandalaya organised an exhibition at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery in October 1967 and Dr. Gunapala Malalasekera, then Chairman, National Council for higher Education graced the occasion. In the same year his etching titled "Setting out for the catch" was an excellent masterpiece selected by the Arts Council of Ceylon. It was sent to Brazil for the Sao-Paulo Biennial International Exhibition. He had participated in many international exhibitions such as "Man and his World" held in Montreal, Canada, in Cairo, Paris and at the Buddhist Art Exhibition in Sofia, Bulgaria organised by the Bulgarian Cultural Council and in 1979 participated as Sri Lanka's delegate (Visual Arts) at the South Asian Festival of Culture held in New-Delhi where Sri Lanka exhibited paintings in connection with the festival.

He also exhibited paintings at the second Asian Art Show in Fukuoka, Japan in 1985. Upasena had a hand in temple painting as well in 1987 was invited by chief priest of Nawa Jethavana Maha Viharaya at Sravasti in Uttara-Pradesh in India to paint 32 frescoes. In 1989 twelve murals depicting the life of the Buddha for the Hong Kong Buddhist Association were permanently displayed. He has painted ten of his work depicting Sri Lanka's people, flower and foliage, animals and birds for a permanent display at Vatican, Rome.

On the invitation of the High Commissioner for India in Sri Lanka he has painted three large murals at the High Commission of India office in Colombo. Upasena's forte is oil on canvas with which he has done many of his paintings.

Discipline is a quality that the painter achieves over the years and brings to bear on his work. It also strengthens his ability to bring out 'RASA' out of Bhava depicted on the painting 'Despair'. In the Australian publication of 'Hemisphere' widely distributed in the South East Asian region carried on the cover page a painting done by Upasena titled "Kandyan Dancer dressing".

Having proved his mastery of the genre painting and etching Upasena has turned his hand to another branch of art-writing short stories published in 2001 and successful from the start. In 1988 he was awarded the 'Kalapathi' award by the Ceylon Society of Art for the services rendered to the cause of art and cultural activities in Sri Lanka.

Upasena is married and blessed with two daughters and a son. He sits upright with a comforting smile across his face.