Traces of the Art Educator and the Artist W. A Ariyasena (1931

Traces of the Art Educator and the Artist W. A Ariyasena (1931 - 2022)

This text is dedicated to an extraordinary art teacher, former faculty (Department of Painting, Faculty of Visual Arts) and a modern painter in Sri Lanka W.A. Ariyasena who died at 91 (?) on August 8, 2022.

When I heard the news about the death of this wonderful personality, it took me back to some traces that he left on his journey. An object ( a large blue colour container) that I saw at his studio in 2020 is not a work of art that he intentionally created, but it is something that the artist left during the act of painting as an unconscious habit of mark making. These energetic traces of his gestures embodying his presence and absence in the present context is the hidden energy of his language of art and teaching. His conversation was always full of arts, literature, music and cinema that he absorbed by travelling around Europe and living in the discourse of his contemporaries (J.D.A Perera, Mahagamasekara, David Paynter, Stanley Abesinghe, H.A. Karunarathne, Albert Dharmasiri..). His philosophy as an artist and an art teacher is rooted in the contexts of the European modern language and Sri Lankan traditional form of art. He was interested in juxtaposing these two languages by seeing their differences and similarities. W.A. Ariyasena was able to bring his experiences and history to the young generation of teachers, artists and students in the faculty during the time he was actively engaged in academic works.

Therefore, it requires an in-depth art historical excavation to reveal untold stories of Sri Lankan Art where the artist W.A. Ariyasena is situated. That could help to reconstruct the history of art while redefining his contribution to the Faculty and to the discourse of Modern Art in Sri Lanka.

Dumith Kulasekara

August 9 2022

Colombo

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