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Pruned |
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Earth with hard red rubble. Pruned vineyards. Melted and twisted iron…as if iron sprung from the earth. The strips of land with not so high mounds sprawls and spreads far. The motifs remain un-intrusive of each other. The unconventional patterns spread to the horizon until almost invisible. Like a field of iron rods, bursting out of the earth, melting and twisting. A cold that does not tire. The smell of the earth that is warmed by the gentle sun falling on it. As if the grape storks are growing, twisting and turning, the boredom and the anxiety slowly slip away as such. I don’t have a profound theory on this. The few days in a small house in the village of Bessier in South of France. The pleasure of walking alone for seven, eight miles along the vineyards. The French cuisine, wine culture, pleasure of their hospitality and another world. All these will be unveiling underneath the vineyard in my paintings. Why didn’t I paint the landscape of my own country? Land is seized; an ethnic war is on for the ownership of earth. We move around in danger; landmines all over the landscape; mass graves; barb wire fences; iron barriers; sand sacks; sand barrels; high security zones; human bombs; displaced people in schools, temples, churches and kovils, living in insecure hits; endless chaos in my country’s landscape. Displaced is exhausted after painting repeatedly. From where should I start painting now? That’s the exact point that I don’t understand. I painted the wine yard of Southern France not because of that, but because couldn’t restrain sorrow and fury. Because the people of my country came to my mind - Exhibition of charcoal drawings at Alliance Francaise de Colombo & Kandy, SRI LANKA 2006 |