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RiceCultivation
,1966,oilon canvas,150 x274 cm
Painting at the East Entrance to the Delegates Lounge at the United Nations
Building,NewYork
Gardenof Eden
,1993,oilon canvas,185 x935 cm
Collectionof EdenHotel,Beruwela, Sri Lanka
MFHusainwithSenanayake
athis show inDubai,2007
paint mostly over the weekends! While commissions
came from distant corners of the world, Senaka was
still intermittently dreaming of quitting art and taking
up studies in the field of medicine. Senaka laughs when
he recalls those days of dilemma when for some reason
he was quite determined to try his hand at becoming
a doctor, a plastic surgeon, in fact! Ultimately, he stuck
to painting. This may have also been because he had
by then met his beautiful bride-to-be Jenny who simply
loved his art.
Important critics such as L P Goonetillake wrote: “We are
without courage, without freedom, without passion and
joy if we fail to follow the lyricism and brilliance of his
brush.Colourswereneversopure,sopositive,sopleasing.”
Deeply spiritual, Senaka is a practising Buddhist who is
equally respectful of other faiths. He quotes a saying of
Buddha when you ask him about the vagaries of life and
fame, “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the
future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
The present suite of work represents in all likelihood
Senanayake’s best works in recent years. The artist has
been working in single-minded isolation for a while
now, taking short respites to Galle or the rainforests to
meditate and relax. He doesn’t like to wander too far
away from his beloved island country and prefers to
spend his days in his studio-home with his family. The
rambling rooms spilling over with art, bric-a-brac, potted
plants, silver statuettes and antiquities bustle with life as
the household go about their many chores. Songbirds
nest in the trees outside and their raucous trilling often
has the dogs in a tizzy. Yet, as you step away from this
warm space into Senaka’s studio, it is quiet and cool. The
outside world recedes and on the canvases the painted
humming birds, hornbills and cockatoos stand alert, as
if poised to take sudden flight. Distilled from the natural
world it is the essence of the forests and its creatures
that make Senaka’s painterly narrative so mystical. He is
familiar with the flora and fauna and flight of the fireflies
that cast their solitary trail of light in the dark wilderness.
His nightscape with the black lotus bears testimony to
those times. The palette usually so vivid and radiant is
bleached of colour then and is mysteriously dark.
Senanayake is engaged with an idyllic world that is slowly
disappearing. His art captures the contours of a dream,
the recurring theme he seems to convey time and again
is that there is still hope and cause for optimism no
matter how trying the circumstances.
It is fitting to conclude with the words of Colin Wilson,
“Whether civilization improves or declines, the simple,
intuitive artist will go his way, recording that basic
harmony as naturally as a bird sings.”
— Ina Puri
Senanayake, circa1970
Ina Puri is a well known writer and art critic based
in Delhi. She is currently working on a book about
Senaka Senanayake
.