President Rajapaksa’s portrait by Prof. M.T.M Jiffry :

An academic- cum-artist’s impression
 

 by Ranga CHANDRARATHNE

A very little is known about artistic pursuits of Prof. M.T.M Jiffry who is a teacher in the Department of Physiology and currently is the Vice Chairman

of the University Grants Commission. However, he is also an accomplished artist.

He had to suppress his desire for drawing although he drew for the first time at the age of six. Prof. Jiffry held his first exhibition of paintings at the Main Library of the University of Peradeniya.

A significant characteristic of Prof. Jiffy’s diction of painting is the use of bright colours and his keen eye for detail depiction from diverse perspectives. At times, his paintings are multi-layered in terms of diverse readings that emanate from them. They were surely not mere drawing of every-day objects of life but inspired expression of the extremely sensitive artist in Prof. Jiffry. He draws inspiration from diverse sources such as nature, cultural pageants and folk dances like Kavadi.

For instance, the painting of Kavadi dancers depicts not only the quintessential characteristic ritualistic dance done to pay homage to the god but also the dancers’s typified movements, special postures of the performers to the beatings of the drums. Kavadi dance is a popular feature in many cultural pageants such as the Kandy Perahera and Perahera in Kataragama. For this painting, bright colours red, blue and green have been used. A dancer carries a peacock’s feather which is associated with God Kataragama.

Prof. Jiffry’s forte seems to be in the abstract paintings. For instance painting such as Foliage, Acrobatics and Concentration shows strikingly unique style of painting and line architecture. Some of these abstract features can also been seen in his portraits and paintings on nature.

This has added a unique artist’s perspective to each and every painting making them distinguishable from mere recreations of every day objects. For the image, simple brush strokes have been used with different degree of shades of green to create a mess of foliage.

Prof.Jiffry’s success in paintings is a testimony to the multi-talented academics in Sri Lanka. Specially, he draws for sheer pleasure and his expressions, definitely, emerge from the bottom of his heart.

On President Mahinda Rajapaksa Primarily Prof. Jiffry uses oil paintings as a medium for his creations. For the President’s portrait, he has used bright colours such as red, blue and white. Here President Mahinda Rajapaksa clad in immaculately white National costume with his signature red shawl, adoring Mother Lanka. Though the colour of shawl and that of the Sri Lanka is not the same, the colour of the Mother Lanka and that of President Rajapaksa is similar symbolising that the Government is, now, in control of the entire island. Significantly the immaculate white is also a symbol of purity in ancient culture and also in many other civilisations. Therefore, the bright white or sharp white of President’s national costume intuitively suggest that he has a clear vision and mission with pure intentions of serving the nation. Here the artist has encapsulated all the qualities embodied by President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s upright character and iron will to carry out his mission. The entirety of the frame is dominated by the larger-than-life portrait of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. This is also a clever mode of projecting a great personality who is living in the hearts and minds of thousands of Sri Lankans around the world. The portrait is, perhaps, the most sincere tribute to President Mahinda Rajapaksa from an Artist. (RC)