The Colours Of Memory: In Conversation With Sri Lankan Artist Shanaka Kulathunga

I was about three when the war broke out. At that age, you understand very little of what is going on. As I grew older, I heard horrific stories about the killings and the violence and the bomb blasts, about the large number of young people who had lost their lives. There was fear in the air when I was growing up, too. School would close because of security reasons. News of people dying in blasts would trickle in. 

In my paintings, I take a different approach to the violence and all the wounds it inflicted. For instance, one day, soon after the war ended, I happened to see children from a severely affected area tending their goats in the open. I went back home and painted them. In one of my paintings, you see a little girl surrounded by a flock of white goats. In her arms, she cradles a black goat. That goat represents the underprivileged, the ethnic minority in my country. Everybody deserves care and respect. Everybody needs to be treated equally. That’s the message I want to convey.

Many stories about everyday life intrigue me. Quiet, ordinary moments can contain extraordinary dimensions. And then there are the stories that lay buried. The tales that we don’t want to tell or can’t bring ourselves to share with others. My aim is to draw the viewers into the heart of these stories. To show that we are all complex beings buffeted by emotions. We struggle to tame our demons, to live a good life, to reconcile to the idea that both the devil and the angel reside within us. Humans have always tried to tame nature and declare our mastery over her. But what about our own nature? I rely on magic realism in some of my paintings to show the human struggle to master our own selves. It’s an eternal tug of war. The world doesn’t allow us to cling to our innocence.

When I was a child, all I wanted to do was paint animals. I had no interest in painting people. There were many animals near our home since we lived in a semi-urban area. Cows would amble around with calves in tow. Goats skipped by, bleating loudly. There was lush greenery all around. Paddy fields stretched ahead of me; streams gurgled past. I was allowed to run around freely, climbing trees with my friends, plucking cashew nuts and stuffing them in our pockets. I wanted to make all the animals I saw my pets. Since my parents vetoed that wish, I would paint them, record their movements, make them mine in a sense via my art. Those memories have stayed with me. When I paint the natural world, I feel I’m painting my childhood. There is a certain nostalgia at work there. When I paint a seascape or trees or mountains, I’m very aware that landscapes evoke powerful feelings.  I love to go on long walks in the countryside. These walks always help me to find new subjects for my paintings. Sri Lanka has immense natural beauty and it’s our duty to protect it. I come from such a beautiful country, but so many ugly things have been done to it because of politics.

I love the older parts of some cities in Sri Lanka, Kandy for instance. Older parts of cities sing their own songs. You can see colonial-style buildings in my Kandy paintings. Their colours and crumbling facades are unique. Old building like these have stories to tell. I like to pay attention to them. I find them far more attractive than the concrete monstrosities that keep springing up around us now. 

[In my painting of Kandy] A family of five crammed on top of a scooter drives past old buildings, a horse cart gallops by, a dog barks at the cart, the sun shines on dusty streets, the sky stretches over the rich and the poor and life goes on... Families struggle, politicians make promises they forget to keep, ordinary people manage to get by. I’ve also painted an urban scene inspired by a visit to Old Delhi. The colours, the architecture, the crowds, the brightly coloured veils women wore; the co-existence of tradition and modernity: all of it make the frame come alive.

(Laughs) Delhi is such a big place, there’s so much traffic, crowds everywhere. Everything is massive, supersized. Colombo is smaller and quieter in comparison... Feels less overwhelming to me