Representation of Trauma in Contemporary Art: Athens, Greece, 2015

5th International Conference of Visual and Performing Arts, Athens Institute for Education and Research, June 1-4 2015

My visit to Athens in Greek has been a significant sign for my studio and research practices in many ways. In particular, presenting a paper that reflects my own studio practice on Trauma in a place like Greece where the term trauma first defined and used meant a lot to me. The city of Athens is one of the historical cities in the whole history of art, science, and philosophy which gave the foundation


The Temple of Olympian Zeus, Athens, Greece, pic: by Dumith Kulasekara

of many disciples in the western world from classical antiquity to the contemporary context.

It was a great time that I had in Athens on June 1-4 in 2015. I delivered my speech on the theme of trauma that I have been researching on for more than ten years in my career as an artist and researcher in the field of Visual Arts. It also marks a significant place in terms of my journey as an artist and lecturer after having completed my MFA at the New York Academy of Art in New York, NY, the USA in 2014.

In a sense, this research has become an extension of my studio practice which brought to the public as Trauma and as The Symbolical Impossibility of Trauma in 2008 and 2011 respectively on my first and second solo shows in Colombo,
The significant thing about representing this paper in Athens is that the relationship between the theme and context that the paper was represented.

All right of the content in this blog reserved by Dumith Kulasekara 2015

"The Red Youth" : A Modern Painting in Sri Lanka

The 1950s was a period that marked significant changes that happened on both the super and infrastructures of Sri Lanka. Such changes were reflected in cultural lives and their productions made within that context. In particular, from a political, social, and cultural point of view, the year 1956 was significantly traced as a period that the mainstream ideological belief of the country was turned into another direction (maybe with a belief of a positive future). At that time the state of the country thought that the roots of Sri Lankan energetic forces had been hidden, therefore, such forces should be re-generated. It formed a new political movement with empowering native five great forces. In this text, I am not going to discuss such issues and areas, obviously, it is another research. The reason that I slightly mentioned such historical background is because the subject of this text; "the Red Youth" (pic: 1) was painted in the year 1956. In 2018 (I cannot remember the exa...

Sri Lankan Modern Art: George Keyt: A Portrait of the Artist by Albert Dharmasiri

an Artist looking at an Artist George Keyt: A Portrait of the Artist by Albert Dharmasiri If I am not mistaken, I first met Professor Albert Dharmasiri in 2005 when I was a second-year student at the department of painting. Albert Dharmasiri who was the first Professor in Painting taught the courses in life drawing and life painting at the department. He had experiences of teaching and being in the highest academic bodies at UVPA nearly for four decades. One day, I remembered he came to the studio for life painting sessions with a book on one of the most celebrated figurative painters of all time Lucian Freud (1922 – 2011). He talked about the beauty of paint application in his nudes painting. In particular, the poses of the human body that Freud depicted were appreciated by Professor Dharmasiri. And in one of his drawing sessions, Professor Dharmsiri said that “look at the inner rhythmical structure of the human body, as you can see it in leaves...”. Albert Dharmasiri stud...

Selected works 2006 - 2013

The works shown here were created between 2006 and 2013. And the most of the works exhibited in Dumith Kulasekara's first and second solo shows which took place in 2008 and 2011 at the Harold Peries Gallery in Colombo 07, Sri Lanka. These works represent his visual forms and images of more than fifteen years research on the theme of Trauma . In fact, Kulasekara's works bring together extreme critical, political view of the artist and aesthetic of language of painting that he gained through a rigorous practice in his studio. All right received by Dumith Kulasekara 2015

Dumith Kulasekara: Visual Arts Practice, Research & Writing.

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