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About Me


My name is Dumith Kulasekara. I am an artist, curator and independent researcher. I was a senior lecturer in painting and drawing at the Department of Painting, Faculty of Visual Arts of the University of Visual and Performing Arts, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. I was the head of the department of painting from 2018 to 2021. During this academic position, I designed the four years undergraduate program of drawing and painting and  it included the restructuring the whole program of the department of painting. I worked at this institute from 2009 to 2023. 

In my studio and research practice, I explore the themes of trauma, memory, gender and body. and psychoanalytical reading of art, its influences and reflections on visual arts practice. I was born in Colombo and grew up in a family that had a strong art and craft practice. My studio practice, writing, and research work are inevitably connected with my childhood memories and my relationship with society and the world around me. This includes the civil war in 1988-89 and the war ended after thirty years in 2009. 

My research practice on trauma and visual arts started in 2004.  That was brought into the public as my first solo exhibition titled Trauma which was exhibited in Colombo in 2008. Extending the research on the theme of Trauma further into a deeper level within the studio and theoretical context, I encountered it with the public as my second solo show tilted the Symbolical Impossibility of Disavowing Trauma in 2011. The third solo show exhibited in Seoul in 2016 was titled The Skins which addressed the interrelationship between the exterior appearance of the body and interior hidden features as a metaphor for the presence and absence of trauma and memory. 
 
My formal education in visual arts began in 2002 with the enrollment in a BFA program in Painting at UVPA and completed with the first class honors in 2008. I received an MFA in Painting from the New York Academy of Art in New York, in the USA between 2012 and 2014 for which I was awarded a two-year Fulbright Scholarship by the Fulbright Commission in Colombo and the USA.  In the USA, I have received special training in 'the Old-Masters' painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

In addition, I have received education experiences at the University of Davis in California in USA in 2012, at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea. In 2016, I was awarded a fellowship in visiting professor program at the Korea National University of Arts (K'Arts). In the K’ Arts program,  I produced a body of work that addressed the extended theme of trauma and body and curated an exhibition based on my studio practices. In 2018, I was invited to a month's visiting research program by the Department of Fine Art at SOJO University in Japan. I have received special training in Japanese Painting in this program.


Ongoing Research Projects and Publications
  • A Collective Writing on Trauma and Psychoanalytical Reading of Visual Arts
  • Transformation of the Heywood Building into a Museum titled "Museum of Visual Arts (MoVA)
  • Multidisciplinary Approach to Artistic Anatomy and Anatomy in Medical Practice
  • Cast Collections and Colonialism: Case Study based on the Faculty of Visual Arts Collection in Colombo and Indian Subcontinent.

My research has been published in Athens Institute for Education and Research in Athens, Greece in 2015, 2016, and 2018 as well.

As an artist and a researcher, I strongly believe visiting visual arts collections and cities is important to develop self-studio practice, writing, and research further into a deeper level. I have been enormously inspired by being in person in in-front of real visual arts collections, museums, institutions, galleries, and cultural cities in the world. So, travelling is a key activity of my research practice. It includes the major art collections, museums, and institutions in San Francisco- CA, New York City, New Jersey, Pennsylvanian, New Heaven, Washington DC, Georgia in the USA,  Paris, Athens, Florence, Naples, Genova, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels and Belgium, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Kagoshima in Japan, Seoul, Busan in South Korea and Trivandrum in South India, and so on.

updated 2023, Colombo.


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George Keyt: A Portrait of The Artist by Albert Dharmasiri

  Albert Dharmasiri was the first professor in Painting at the Department of Painting. His unique scholarly contribution to the literature of Sri Lankan Art has been significant and unavoidable landmark of writing of Sri Lankan Art. In the recent book, Dharmasiri relooks at George Keyt’s position in the context of Sri Lankan and South Asian Art. Unique scholarly investigation on   Keytian   Language of Drawing and Painting with very rare collection of reproduction of his works, this book gives a comprehensive reading of George Keyt’s works and his contemporary context as well. A comprehensive review of the book is published on this blog soon. Dumith Kulasekara  January 30 2021
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