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| Sunday, 1 August 2004 |
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Spiritually inspired by Kaminie Jayanthi Liyanage
"A Swedish lady who was my first teacher in art told me, 'If you want to go forward as an artist, either paint on glass or draw on batik," says an enthralled Jayasena. "I opted for the second." And left his secure government occupation in the National Housing Authority in 1991 to pursue his dream of becoming an independent creative personality.
"Don't be afraid to compete," "Batik Sujee" advises his peers in creativity. "Just stare at the world around you and come up with something new all the time." A rare follower of his own advice, currently he is engrossed in a wall art of 16 feet in length, depicting the richness of ancient Sri Lanka, to adorn the walls of the Australian High Commission office in Colombo. |
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| Produced by Lake House |
How does it feel like to get one's 127th award? Ask "Batik Sujee"
alias batik artist W. L. Sujeewa Jayasena who has just received a 127th
land mark award for being the best creative artist (open category) in the
all island poster competition conducted by the National Savings Bank on
the occasion of World Thrift Day 2003. For he outlines his creativity as
one which had blossomed out at bagging a Silver award in Shankar Art
Competition as a lad of 15 years, and gone on to earn 32 international
awards from Germany, Japan, Canada, Australia, India and quite a few other
countries.
He has no regrets. Not even a fleeting minuscule. From designing
decorative art to colour the stalls when Prime Minister Ranasinghe
Premadasa was at the helm of the "Gam Udawa" village
re-awakening programme, he had moved on to experience his initiation into
commercialised batik art with "Buddhi Batik" of Buddhi
Kirthisena, and then, as he himself expresses, the humility of humane
batik art with "Vipula Batik" of Vipula Dharmawardena. He
combines all these experiences and says they have culminated in the
realisation that "All of us need to engage in an art with some inner
spiritual depth, advancing beyond mere financial returns. That alone gives
the artist within us a truly accomplished fulfilment."
He now designs his own line of batik apparel by the name Picasso Black
Line. "I love the ancient local art. You can see from my apparel art
that my designs are influenced by African, American, German, Australian
tribal and folk art." By such propensities, "Batik Sujee"
has now won for himself a different name as "the rebel of black and
white", in the apparel design arena. The lack of comprehensive books
in Sri Lanka on foreign art is his pet complaint.
