Marie Alles Fernando:

Inspired by light, driven by faith

Marie Alles Fernando is inspired when light falls on a beautiful face or a landscape and makes strange patterns. Trained to observe the play of light and shade, she uses this ephemeral dance to create her pictures.

Deeply spiritual, she says the meaning in art for her goes naturally with faith. “They go hand in hand,” she expounds, adding that her mentor Harry Peries, told her that art was supposed to be ineffable, meaning it was too great to be just expressed like a photograph. “So my mentor’s point was that good art is a catalyst for a variety of feelings and interpretations. It is never about one thing only. When you look at a picture you will see there are many things that are unsaid. You have to look for that meaning.”

She uses her ideas in painting pictures as an indication, rather than a message. The viewer looking at it has to come up with his or her own interpretation.

Marie says contemporary art gives her the freedom to explore and that her paintings are not restricted to any one creed or theology. “My philosophy of art changed after the initial lessons. I had lessons in technique, composition, space, colour and colour relationships from the great teachers. But my mentor was Harry Peries,” she says, adding that Ivor Baptist taught her landscapes together with her mother who was also an artist.

Paint on the spot

For eight years Marie, whose forte in impressionism, learnt the impressionist techniques of the French from Professor Douglas Amarasekare. Claiming that her philosophy of art changed after those lessons, she says she prefers to paint landscapes because initially her teacher was Ivor Baptist and he used to take them outdoors and instruct them to “paint on the spot”.

The lessons are captured in a 1965 painting titled ‘George Stewart Canal and Wekanda Mills in the Background’. Deemed a historical painting, captured in it are buildings that belonged to George Stewart & Company and a bridge. Neither the buildings nor the bridge are in existence today.

Marie also paints figures, especially Sri Lankan figures, of people being active. She says she is inspired when light and shade colour them beautiful. However, she prefers landscapes because it is very close to God and Nature. Her favourite landscape painter is Joseph W. Turner because she has never seen landscapes like his.

Marie prefers oil as a medium because it has a richness that no other medium has. “All the old masters are done in oils and some of the impressionist paintings are done in oil on canvas and I would recommend future artists to use the best quality. That is why my painting has lasted for fifty years,” she says.

Claiming, “You learn the basic principles from your teachers and then you have to innovate,” Marie says painting is a constant process of innovation, and adds that she works artistically at the impressionist and Poetic levels.

Process of innovation

She says she feels fulfilled just doing her job, and adds, “We have had enough of Picasso and Matisse and everybody else. When people like me paint, we have to do our own thing. We have to be different. You cannot follow the herd.

It is useless. They have come and gone. They have said what they have to say to the world and gone. Now new people have to say something new. I have my own style.”

Marie’s favourites painters are Monet, Pissarro, Toulouse, Van Gogh and Gustav Klimt from Vienna, who though not an impressionist, whose work borders on impressionism. She says Klimt’s paintings are very cosmopolitan, a blend of impressionism with the oriental.

A person of deep faith, Marie says it is her belief in the Creator that led her to discover and to go on innovating. A strong Catholic, she says her ancestors were people who have used their wealth to build Churches in Sri Lanka. The Maligakanda Church, she says was built by her aunt.

New York auction

A painting by Marie was auctioned in the New York Hilton at an event organized by the Sri Lanka Medical Association of North America (SLMANA) last month. Proceeds from the auction were given to charity.

Married with three children, Marie strongly believes in family values and says, “We were very happily married living on the tea plantations. This is because my husband has a great understanding about my painting talent and he has encouraged me throughout my life, even now”.

Apart from art, Marie loves music, preferring light classical, especially Beethoven and Mozart.