In Beneath the Canopy, Karunasiri Wijesinghe continues his over 30 year endeavour to represent an aesthetic and spiritual exploration of Sri Lanka’s natural environment. In the works on view, the artist brings a focused gaze on aerial roots in his portraiture of trees – such as the prop roots Banyan trees of Viharamahadevi park and Pandanus forests of Bentota, the pneumatophores of Mangrove Trees of Galle and Madu Gaga, creating an untangled imagery of these veins and anchors. The meditatively built strokes and hatches highlight the salient features such as the criss-crossing tentacles as well as the inconspicuous moments, such as the flutter of the leaves.
While they appear to be photographic in the detail, Karunasiri’s works are not documentary but a deeply emotive memorialisation, like remembering a beloved’s features and mannerisms. “I don’t draw a landscape as the eye sees it. I draw what speaks to me. It can be a tree, a branch or a network of complex roots. Sometimes it is just a part of a tree, I try to bring out its individuality by drawing only that section devoid of all the complexities around it. I try to bring out the inner characteristic of a particular tree or root not only the outer appearance. The interconnectedness between trees and shrubs, root systems, the attraction it has to me and the message that they give to me is what I try to convey through my art. The trees speak to me. I not only see the complex knot of roots, I feel their complex struggle for survival, their problems and hardships. Every knot and scar on a tree tells its own story.”
The artist has travelled across the tropical forest ecology of the island since his early 20’s From spending months in the Sinharaja forest in the ‘90s to to now conducting weekly sketching classes in the lush urban garden of Viharamahadevi Park, Karunasuri is most comfortable in the presence of tree folk. It is their presence that he acknowledges first, even when he is surrounded by people.
Building great depth with free, focused strokes while listening to the cool jazz tunes of Chet Baker, Stan Getz, and Dave Brubeck, Karunasiri says, “The intricate network of blood vessels and nerves in the human body is like the root system that binds man with nature. Literature, music, art, sculpture—all forms of art take us back into nature.”
Also, on view are incomplete sketches, works in progress, and ink bleeds from preparatory strokes, and photographs from his extensive stay in the Sinharaja forest. We see a slow building of the works, starting with pencilled outerform, building depth with hashing and creation of its scenery through his watercolours. Sometimes he likes to get to know the tree in further detail, his research of its various facets like the roots, the flowers, the bark includes scientific names of plants, and the trilingual names of three written in English, Sinhala and Tamil.
Karunasiri Wijesinghe (b. 1957, Makadura, Sri Lanka) graduated with the degree Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Institute of Aesthetic Studies, University of Kelaniya (1982). He has taught as Visiting Lecturer at the Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts (VAFA), Colombo and the University of the Visual and Performing Arts, Colombo. He lives and works in Colombo.
