Skip to main content

Trauma-Stigmata: Symptomizing the Imaginary Response to the Memories of the Past, Its Traces and Repetitions.

This exhibition brings together Dumith Kulasekar's paintings created between 2012 and 2023 in two different locations; New York City in the USA during 2012-2014, and two studios in Sri Lanka. The exhibition is presented as a self-curated project emphasising the terminological meaning; curating as caring for something that has different values concerning different contexts.  The self-curation emphasises the integrity of studio research with a post-studio research context where a specific context is regenerated or allows emerging through the way of contextualising the works within a particular material space. In this sense, self-curation is again a political and poetical potential act within the so-called contemporary (institutionalised) art practice.



This exhibition is titled Trauma-Stigmata and has emerged from more than fifteen years of studio and research practice on the theme of trauma which was the title of the first exhibition of Dumith Kulasekara held in 2008 in Colombo.  Trauma-Stigmata includes more than twenty paintings including objects (shrines) addressing the transference of trauma both as bodily and psychic wounds created within one or a group of people by encountering the different cultural and natural atmospheres, from the past act, memory, and imagination to permanent traces or fragmented marks imprinted on both body and psyche. The works in the exhibition are not representations of such experiences, but rather imaginary responses to the whole context that pollinate for different narrations.  

From smaller-scale paintings to larger-scale epic paintings made in the traditional medium of oil signify the painting as a language of excavating personal and social space in the past, the present and the unknown future.  As Dumith Kulasekara states “Painting is a psycho-archeological excavation digging down surface reality to the unknown deepest layers of the psyche. I am not excavating the other's body, but mine. Then, unexpectedly, I would find traces of your presence within the excavated history.

Fragments of bodies, traces of gender identities, bodies holding animals and a female child, and praying bodies and hands situated in imaginary landscapes full of flowers, natural creatures and animals symptomize the imaginary response to the memories of the past, its traces and repetitions in the present context. The lack of the presence of masculine bodies in these works signifies the question of gendered bodies. 



Despite the philosophical and theoretical foundation of the title of the show and each title of the painting, during the exhibition, the works were not labelled, and the text of the works and exhibition was also not provided allowing the audience to experience the exhibition in ways that the audience is related to the theme. This also extends an openness of truth/s in art by reinterpreting the art practices from different perspectives and theories rather than narrowly and politically oriented contextualisation. 


Trauma-Stigmata
January 26 - 28, 2023
Harold Peiris Gallery, Colombo, SL.

This Exhibition is presented by Atelier Dumith Kulasekara (All rights received©2023) 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Read more