Amaresh Pereira :

Shimmering colours, subdued fiery emotions

The city of Kandy is 115 km from Colombo and some 500 metres above sea level. The train journey to Kandy found us filled with delight over the glorious mountain views and panoramic site with glimpses of tea plantations, lush green paddy fields, waterfalls, mountain vistas, and a half miles drive from the railway station brings us to one of the loveliest spots in all the world - Kandy.

It is in this city that Amaresh Pereira was born. And now this glorious city has come to vibrant life through the endeavours of Amaresh Pereira, who has cut a niche for himself in Sri Lanka as a reputed artist. At an early age he was admitted to Trinity College Kandy.

Trinity College was intended as a Christian school but it was moulded by its most efficient principal Rev. A.G. Fraser, to blend the best of the West with the culture of the East.

It was here that Amresh had his first art lessions. His art teacher Mahinda Somasiri who recognised Amaresh's exceptional talent, trained him to become what he is today.

Mentor

After some time he got Prof. Ashley Halpe's advice as mentor, guide and guru in professional art. As a young boy Amaresh was influenced by the paintings collected by his father. The enormous impact of the great masters such as Rembrandt Rubens, and the spontaneity of direct painting by the impressionists influenced Amaresh to become a painter.

Amaresh Pereira

Viparinatha-Bhava

He took to serious painting at the age of eighteen, and mainly works with oil paint. The artist's work depicts animals, emotions, religious ceremonies, village scenes, morality, and ancient mural traditions.

Amaresh expresses shimmering colours subdued fiery emotions with transparent layers of interesting and over lapping brush strokes.

He has a tendency for cluster colours and brush strokes at the centre of the canvas, as if an image was attempting to coalesce and emerge. As a result his paintings are meaningful, subtle alluring and punctilious. They mould the human condition.

His themes are never uniform, they are varied and range from paintings of cats, devil dancers, cobras, Bharata natyam dancers and the torch-bearers (at the Kandy perahera), the notable feature of his work is the use of dark colours, which gives his work depth and enchances his ability to focus on light within darkness.

Amaresh is an artist with an insight into a wide variety of subjects and for each he has an appropriate technique and method.

A series of his new creations are: Tusker at the entrance", 'Eye of the Predator", Viparinatha - Bhava, (a picture of a shrine room with the statue of the Buddha seated) are all done in oil on canvas, that makes Amaresh's art one of the most elusive but most fascinating in our times.

Solo exhibition

Amaresh held his first solo exhibition at the Alliance Francaise Kandy in 2000, followed by another in 2001. He participated in three events of the George Keyt foundation exhibition for young contemporaries. In 2005 he exhibited his work at the Barefoot Gallery Colombo.

He was warmly received and made a visiting lecturer at the University of Peradeniya, where he taught art as an elective course in the faculty of Engineering to the undergrads.

Amaresh says, "the impulse to create art first came from the terrorism that overshadowed Sri Lanka. As I progressed I delved into the idea of the internal and external together (soft and hard) and so my paintings have duality shown through light and darkness simultaneously.

At present he teaches art at the senior school of Gateway International Kandy. Currently he is working on a collection of his latest works to be held in water-colours and oil.