While other boys his age were probably playing sports after school, Senaka Senanayake was doing something completely different. At age seven, in 1958, he was displaying his artworks at his first exhibition in Colombo's National Gallery of Art in his native Sri Lanka.
An American journalist visiting the exhibit was struck by the child's talent and arranged for an exhibition in California the following year. Overnight, American, British and French critics dubbed the young Senanayake a prodigy.
Senanayake, now 54, flagged off yet another exhibition in Mumbai, his fourth in as many years. His current showing, branded 'the Forests of the Mahabharata' at the Museum Gallery in Kalaghoda, Mumbai is a first of many sorts.
So far, Senanayake's exhibitions have either been one-man shows or multi-artist exhibitions. Here, his art has been coupled with the paintings of the late Telugu artist, Redappa Naidu, who has depicted the Mahabharat.
It is also the first time that Senanayake is displaying his series of paintings on rain-forests, influenced by his activist cousin in Eucador who is fighting for the rain forests there.
Senanayake says the trigger was also the "save the rain-forests" campaign currently underway in Sri Lanka, which he is spearheading. Naidu's paintings are directly related to the Mahabharata .
However, Senanayake's paintings were not influenced by the epic. Sharan Apparao, the curator of the art-exhibit, states that his work is related to the Mahabharata in "a metaphorical sense".
Senanayake's choice of colours , mostly bright, spans a range of translucent pastels with slight hints of gold and metallic tints. His choice of media is oils though occasionally he experiments with multi-media.
It usually takes him four 10-hour days to paint a large canvas. Why is there an abundance of curves and circles in his paintings? Senanayake delves into his Buddhist spirituality.
"The curves and circles indicate the concept of eternal life. The circular style I have adopted has evolved for three reasons: it creates movement, dimension and shows the continuous motion of life. There is no beginning and no end," he says.
Environment has been the crux of Senanayake's themes. Birds, flowers, giraffes and banana plantations, "anything that is near extinction".
With over 130 one-man exhibitions in several countries, with one of his paintings hanging in the hall of dignitaries at the UN headquarters in New York, Senanayake also has his favourites "" like the painting he did exclusively for the Indian godman Sathya Sai Baba.
Critics have always been intrigued by the maturity of the paintings he did when he was a child. One of his first paintings depicts coolies pulling a rickshaw.
This maturity was at odds with the sheltered environment that he had been raised in "" he hails from the aristocratic political dynasty of Sri Lanka.
In the '60s, when he was earning his fine arts degree from Yale, his paintings were influenced by the anti-Vietnam War and hippie movements. Back home in 1972, Senanayake focused on Buddhist themes.
A decade later, he became a follower of Sai Baba. Since then, his paintings, mirroring his new spiritual outlook, have centred on light-hearted themes.
Currently, publishing house Popular Prakashan's Harsha Bhatkal is working on Senanayake's biography. He claims that with no domestic market for art in Sri Lanka, the artist has carved out his own following on foreign shores.
The Forests of the Mahabharata series will be showcased in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai through the coming year. Senanayake has no concrete plans for his next series.
"It's constantly evolving. Sai Baba once said happiness is sandwiched between two sadnesses. That statement inspires all my paintings," he says.
