Exeter, NH (March 19, 2007)—From Monday, April 2 to Saturday, May 12, the Lamont Gallery at Phillips Exeter Academy will present “Island Visions,” an exhibit of Sri Lankan contemporary art, featuring works by four of the country’s top living contemporary artists:  Druvinka, Nelun Harassgama, Shehan Madawela and Josephine Balakrishnan. Each will provide glimpses into the global aesthetics contemporary Sri Lankan art pursues. All works are shown courtesy of The Private Gallery in Malaysia, Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra Collection. An opening reception for the exhibit will be held on Friday, April 6, from 6:30-8:00 p.m. The Lamont Gallery is located in the Frederick R. Mayer Art Center on Tan Lane. The exhibit is free and open to the public.

Druvinka is a painter and printmaker trained in West Bengal, India, where she received an undergraduate degree in Fine Arts. Her work has been exhibited extensively in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and throughout Europe, where she has a loyal collector’s base.
 Druvinka explains a few characteristics about her works and their connection to nature. “One of the essential features in modern art has been the attempt by various and often contradictory means to deepen and clarify the creative act which had become obscured and stifled by tradition. My work displays freedom through color, form, line and symbols. Whether I open or close my eyes to the outside work, I do not draw a single line on brush strokes without striking a deep chord with the reality of nature and its earliest beginnings,” she says.

Nelun Harassgama has painted since childhood and received some formal artistic training in Sri Lanka. Her first solo exhibit was held over 16 years ago, and she has since developed a style of elegant and simple works that are meditative in nature. Her work does not address or desire to address the ethnic conflicts in Sri Lanka. She rather focuses on the impact of change on traditional cultures everywhere and the isolation that often results.

Harassgama’s works are in part inspired by childhood memories of visits to Jaffna during a time, she says, when life was more beautiful. A critic wrote, “…In those days, people’s lives were informed by tradition and a social order which, however inequitable, still prescribed a place for every person, no matter how poor or simple. There was order and harmony in that way of living: qualities which to most of us are almost synonymous with beauty. Compositionally speaking, these qualities are present in Harassgama’s paintings as well, but they serve mainly to remind us, through contrast, of the jagged, chaotic world beyond the frame, the world on whose sharp edges the people in the picture are about to meet their fate.”

About her works, Harassgama says, “The viewer is drawn to and into the tranquility of the figures, faceless and willowy, that are suspended in contentment or perhaps just isolation. They are all rural folk,” she says. “I would try to portray the simple nature of their lives in the picture.” 

Shehan Madawela comes from a family of artists, and lives and paints in India and Sri Lanka. He is a self-taught and full-time artist. Art historian and critic H.A. Anil Kumar, writes:  “…Shehan’s figures, with the aid of surrounding visual motifs, appear simplistic, give way to contrasting sensations and avoid any kind of direct narration. More than anything, the style in which Shehan has painted these canvases is so transparent that an audience can re-enact his creative act, again and again…This has become possible just because Shehan stands on a groundless base…and hence experiences constantly, the ever-changing visions of the world around him.”

Madawela is the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious Artist of the Year, George Keyt Foundation, 1994. His works are collected internationally, and he has exhibited in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, India, New York and London.

Josephine Balakrishnan is a painter and artist of Sri Lankan and British descent, and resides in California. In her art, Balakrishnan uses symbols, societal and social themes collected and sourced from a well-traveled background, and combines them with a vivid palette of colors. Though her strength is her use of colors, Balakrishnan’s works encompass narrations requiring a sense of more than one culture to decipher. Nevertheless, though each painting relates to such a narrative, the aesthetic content does not require an understanding of the underlying story to appreciate the visual product of beauty.

Balakrishnan’s recent body of work communicates through a process of visual dissonance. She cites the Surrealists and Fauves as the parents of visual dissonance, whose works have influenced her images so that they are both colorful and incongruent. The viewer is attracted and invited to resolve the incongruity which then reveals a hidden narration. Balakrishnan’s works include paintings on canvas, lithographs, ceramics and glassworks.

Balakrishnan’s prints are classified as “originals” and are printed on museum archive paper using a process of electronic lithography. Balakrishnan produces each print by operating a printing press in her studio. The work is engraved electronically and printed with pigment in resin on paper, usually in a series between five and 15. She exhibits regularly on the West Coast, U.S.A. and Asia.

Gallery hours are Monday 1–5 p.m., Tuesday–Saturday 9 a.m.–5 p.m., closed on Sunday. For further information, contact the Lamont Gallery at (603) 777-3461 or visit our Gallery webpage at http://www.exeter.edu/news_and_events/news_events_2985.aspx. For directions to Phillips Exeter Academy, call (603) 777-4330. A complete list of upcoming events is available on the Phillips Exeter Academy public events line at (603) 777-4309 and on our website at http://www.exeter.edu/.
                                  
Phillips Exeter Academy is a coeducational, independent preparatory school that was founded in 1781 and originated the system of instruction known as Harkness teaching in 1931. In the spirit of its charter to foster both goodness and knowledge, students come from a wide variety of geographic, economic, racial and religious backgrounds. The diverse student body comes from approximately 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, The Virgin Islands and 26 foreign countries.
                                                                                                               

Learn more about Sri Lankan Contemporary Art at http://www.theprivategallery.com/.

Visit Exeter's art department at http://www.exeter.edu/academics/84_748.aspx