Rasika De Silva:

Inspired by life, coloured by loneliness

The beauty of nature and everything that is life inspires Rasika De Silva to draw and create simple and complex designs in the form of leaves, flowers and trees. He says, “Nature inspires the imagery in my paintings,” and adds that it also helps him express his feelings.

Many things inspire Rasika. It could be a poem, a song or a verse. It could be his circle of artistic friends and colleagues. He draws inspiration from ordinary every day happenings, and says meeting people of various social backgrounds, associating with them and their way of lives motivates him.

He says he has drawn his best during difficult times in his life. “Those moments helped me express myself better than other periods in my life,” he says, firmly believing the creativity that comes through pain and suffering, is often more honest than anything else.

If life inspires him to draw, loneliness inspires him to colour, guiding him to blend and mix and merge the colours for tints and hues that are unique to him.

Rasika describes his work as intuitive. “I start dreaming of another world and I get carried away,” he says, elaborating that these dreams motivates me to create more. He feels happy when his paintings come out well and these happy moments that he experiences when he dreams inspires him to draw even more.

Rasika believes that art was a gift that he was born with, but admits that it was a hidden talent, until it was discovered and improved.

Understanding life

Today, confident in his art, his colours and his style, he says art in the form of colours; lines and shapes create the intelligence for understanding life and the world around you.

Rasika is of the view that the camera creates a challenge to the artist and he overcomes this obstacle by not drawing the visual but painting his thoughts and his feelings. Says he simply, “Colour is the language I use to express my feelings.”

Good at drawing from early childhood, Rasika but his parents were not too keen on art, were not sensitive to his expressions in art and did not encourage his talents. This led to painting taking less importance among his other school subjects. “I have had no particular individual who encouraged me to paint, only my desire and personal interest encouraged me to paint and I will continue to do so in the future as well,” he says.

He likes to draw both figures and landscapes, realistic or abstract. In the early years he focused on landscapes to express his feelings in a realistic form, the influence of other artists expanding his horizon, making him appreciate and draw inspiration from everything that happens around him. Even when he walks down the streets, his busy minds churns out ideas on how to transfer the buildings he is passing by, to his canvas. He explains, “I imagine how to draw these images and draw them as I see them in my mind. This has had a positive influence on my paintings. I like painting the human figure but its beauty can never be captured by an artist. But I always try.”

Not a great fan of oil painting when starting off, his favourite medium when starting off was water colours and crayons. However, when he matured and gained confidence as an artist, he discovered the versatility of oil on canvas, and there has been no turning back.

Occasionally Rasika would derive much satisfaction from painting five-foot canvases. He says he paints slowly as oil takes a while to dry, but adds that each time a colour is blended, he feels happy and relaxed.

Different layers

Oil painting allows him to use different layers of paint on the canvas, and give attention to the finer detail of the paintings. He believes his style of painting is best suited to oil on canvas as he uses many blended colours and different imaginary shapes. “The classical look which oil paintings give too encourages me,” he says, adding that paintings done in oil can be kept for a long time without changing or reducing its original form.

He requires a lot of sun light and quietness when he paints, and often he changes his technique when he needs to think back and re-draw. Rasika, who hails from Ambalangoda, had his early education at G/Kandakoda Maha Vidyalaya, where he studied art as a subject. After his A/Ls, having come to Colombo for employment he forced himself to paint. He had a few teachers who taught him the finer points in painting, among them, both Joe Dambulugala and Anura Handunnetti influenced his paintings a lot. He currently works at Aitken Spence Printing.

Rasika likes visiting the few art galleries in Colombo and enjoys Western classical music, reading novels, travelling, photography and watching movies.

Rasika's work has attracted considerable attention and at present a few of his paintings are being exhibited at the American Centre.

Pix provided by the artist