Pulasthi Ediriweera:

Multi-faceted painter and lyricist

Pulasthi Ediriweera is a painter lyricist and a stamp designer. His paintings are rich in vibrant colours and realistic. His lyrics are laboured and stilted, while his stamp designing is creative. Few cities in the world were better calculated to feed the eyes of the growing young artist with the wonder of beauty.

The city of Colombo is a babel of strange sounds and all new buildings. It has the biggest port of the country and has become the largest trading centre. It is the home of about one million people Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and Hindus. It is in this city of Colombo, Commercial Capital of Sri Lanka, Pulasthi Ediriweera was born. He was educated at Dehiwala Madya Maha Vidyalaya.

Pulasthi's childhood was happy. After leaving school he entered the Institute of Aesthetic Studies but he could not pursue his studies in art due to the death of his father. At the beginning he provided illustrations to various newspapers and magazines. By that time he had won a reputation for picture story illustrations and was in big demand. Reputed advertising agencies invited him with open arms.

He has served in the capacity of art director and creative director in advertising agencies in Colombo. He was also engaged in doing lyrics for commercials which paved the way for him to become a lyricist.

Kalapathi Pulasthi Ediriweera

One of his paintings

Today many leading vocalists have sought his help to write lyrics for their songs. Like most of the other great artists Pulasthi turned his hand in stamp designing. He created stamps using his observation and accurate representation of nature. He also drew leading parliamentarians and business tycoons.

Pulasthi Ediriweera has created over 150 stamp designs and he is a member of the Sri Lanka Stamp Association. Pulasthi's ability to plan out large and complicated compositions upon small sheets of paper, and to begin a portrait with a minutely delineated eye springs from his power to envisage the completed work continuously and exactly.

He employs the method he considered best suited for a given undertaking. The artist's versatility is displayed by his oil on canvas and line drawings depicting many aspects of life in the ancient cities of Sri Lanka. His work includes a wide variety of designs, landscapes, wildlife and birds. He has also done a series of picture stories for tabloid newspapers such as ‘Suhada’, ‘Swarna’ and ‘Sathsiri’ of Camilus publications which became very popular among readers.

Oil painting is his speciality but he is versatile in the wider use of techniques. He uses water colours as another medium and has turned out village scenes, an ordinary farmer plodding home, a wayside coffee shop, religious places of worship Buddhist dignitaries such as Ven. Mapalagama Vipulasara and Ven. Madihe Pannaseeha Theras.

The subjects he selected for his paintings were the realistic scenes of every day life, and beautiful spots in Sri Lanka, Waterfalls, Adam's Peak, beach scenes includes fishing boats, fisherman returning home after a heavy catch and tavern scenes all done in water colours, and monochrome sketches done with pen and ink.

He is the adviser to Jathika Chritrakatha Foundation. In 2000 he exhibited his paintings at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery and at Kandalama Tourist Hotel.

In recognition of the creative achievements of the artist, he was honoured with the Kalapathi award. He is currently the president of the Ceylon society of Arts. In 2006 he received the Artist of the Year Award and serves as an art instructor at the National Art Gallery. Pulasthi is married and has three children.