There is art for art’s sake and there is art where an artist has expressed his innermost self. The last part of this sentiment is echoed in the bold work of Sujith Rathnayake, one of the most prolific artists in Sri Lanka.
Recalling his earliest influence, Sujith explains, “My father created film cut-outs, sign boards, and pandals. The very beginning of basic techniques of brushwork, I got from him. My teacher and an artist in his own right Sarath Weerasinghe had his own art school in Tangalle called Kala Ayathanaya. As a youth, I studied Art there. I was inspired by him and found his style most appealing”.
Sujith Rathnayake was born in Hungama Thuduwa. “It was a village, and a busy one, compared to the neighbouring villages. Its main businesses were fisheries and collecting seashells (for construction purposes) and because of that it was called North Korea.” He adds thoughtfully, “I was the first from my village to enter university. In 1994, I entered the University of Kelaniya. My father encouraged me to get in to campus and get a university degree in Art”.
To him art is, “What cannot be expressed and what is lacking can only be expressed through art.” Sujith religiously believes that art fills an important gap.
“If we take politics, law, religion, science or anything else, it has its limitation. Art on the other hand has that freedom of expression. An artist can never view something the way a lawyer views it. Art knows no boundaries and therefore, society is balanced by art”.
A disciplined executor of contemplation, Sujith’s creative process requires him to work without any interruption. “I switch off my phone, and work continuously until the work is complete. What I feel, my thoughts when creating a work, come to a conclusion when I finish a painting.” Sensitive to his surroundings, Sujith dislikes disturbance of any kind. He goes on to relate with an amused smile “Once there was a helmet on the table I was working on and because it got in my way while I was drawing, I just flung it across”.
He remains constantly inspired by the fundamentals of art. “To create something you need skill. But unfortunately, art today has gone in to effects. I wanted to stand up against this. This is why I developed the one-line technique”. Employing only a single uninterrupted line, Sujith sans colour depicts figures and forms powerfully, articulating mood and movement.
Additionally, Sujith goes on to clarify how he exercises the liberal attitude inherent in art by not limiting himself to a medium. “I use charcoal, pencil, oil paints… I use mixed media… I even did graphic art. Some of my first graphic work was inspired by the music of Premasiri Khemadasa. I wanted to convert his expression into visual art.”
Observing the condition of art in Sri Lanka, Sujith questions the moral obligation that artists have towards the organic growth of art in the country. “The national gallery has been closed for the past five years. Please tell me in which country would the artists be agreeable to their national art gallery being closed? Here, it doesn’t matter to them. Art here is considered congruently with architecture, and we all know architecture is the big money churner. Also abroad there are art schools, movement… etc. There is order. We don’t have a directory or a database where we can refer artists. Art here has become a part of consumerism.”
“Moreover, people here don’t have time to see something and reflect upon it. They are too busy making money to build multi-storeyed houses, to own several vehicles, to send their children to the most expensive schools. Their mind isn’t free to feel.”
It is not surprising that Sujith finds criticism to be an essential commodity in his field. “How can art grow without it?” he asks sincerely.
“But pure art criticism has been corroded in Sri Lanka. Only here would one person play many roles - an artist would be an artist, an art critic, a teacher and a curator..? There has to be a separation, if there must be constructive criticism. The overall problem here is that artists themselves have blurred the lines of visual art and jammed up this genre. For instance, anyone who plays with a paint brush would call himself an abstract artist. How can he?
Abstract is one of the most difficult visual art genres. It is a subjective discovery!”
Artists in Sri Lanka face many challenges. But there’s one particular challenge that he wants to highlight. “To draw and release a piece of art to the public is every artist’s desire. However, here the release to the public has been tainted by NGOs and other commercial bodies. There must be freedom of connection between the releasing of a work and the public receiving it. If not there’s an undue and implied influence upon the artist and his freedom of expression, and over his relationship with the public.” Despite his high standard of expectations from artists, Sujith did agree that such external forces have risen because of the lack of governmental support for art in the country.
“Another challenge I see is how artists don’t connect with each other. There isn’t any useful dialogue between us regarding our work. There is no disclosure, due to which the drive for the advancement of art diminishes”.
Unable to sever his political opinion from the deterioration of social order, Sujith believes that the country’s political state of affairs of recent history has aroused the rebel-without-a-cause attitude in people. “There’s an overbearing imbalance in society. People are so ill disciplined. This was the inspiration behind my series of one line drawing”.
Over the years, Sujith has produced numerous evoking works. Reminiscing on it he confesses, “I am particularly fond of ‘Kavaja’ a series based on letters. Also the visual I created inspired by the incidents of the Colombo Town Hall bombing, I am attached as well. Here the work insinuated the destruction of hegemony in the country and the hegemony of visual art. It was the turning point of political art in Sri Lanka. Art is a fantasy. We break one fantasy and make another. Here, with this piece there was no fantasy. It invoked the viewer to feel and question”.
Contributing a few words of wisdom to emerging artists, Sujith cautions them not to move so quickly with the changing winds and shifting sands. “Develop yourself through the fundamentals of art and then break yourself away from it. Then you cannot be brought down. You’re like a warrior.”
Taking a moment to acknowledge his wife’s support, he credits her patience and understanding as an instrumental force in his artistic journey. Art is indeed an inseparable part of his existence. “I have thoughts and feelings that I need to express. I can’t live without art or I cannot feel life without it”.