Art in a clime of war

As well known in Sri Lanka as Husain in India, Senanayake has both range and conscience

If Senaka Senanayake sounds like the name of a Sri Lankan politician, blame the country's ongoing war and mainstream social opprobrium for the lack of recognition for the island nation's equivalent of M F Husain. The iconic painter, recently becoming well-known in mass Indian art collecting circles, is a national symbol, someone who could well be represented with a brush in an environment where art is the last thing on people's minds.

Yet "" or maybe because of a lack of emerging creative talent of calibre in Sri Lanka (George Keyt is the only other name that comes easily to mind) "" Senanayake (two prime ministers with that surname have occupied the high office in Sri Lanka) at least can take credit for marshalling what there is by way of an arts movement in the country, especially in the last decades. "There is a tremendous shortage of quality art in Sri Lanka," he agrees, "because of the lack of opportunity, because people, artists, have left the country..."

A decade back, the Ceylon Tobacco Company had attempted to plug that gap with a critical book on Senanayake the artist (the foreword was written by Arthur C Clarke), and now Popular Prakashan, in co-production with Sri Lankan Vijitha Yapa Publications (the book was launched in Sri Lanka in December 2007, and will be formally released in India in February this year) has published a glossy, illustrated book on five decades of the artist's life and works. "It's meant mainly as a visual book," says Senanayake, "and we've tried to get as many images as possible, including drawings, because it's very important to see the technical skills of an artist." And adds sardonically, "Not too many modern artists these days know how to draw..."

Born in 1951, a student of Yale University, with over a hundred exhibitions to his credit and a global following, Senanayake, writes Harsha Bhatkal, publisher and author of the book, "has a keen sense of line, colour and composition". Deliberately glowing in his foreword, Bhatkal, who has written for artists' catalogues before, says he aimed at writing "about Senaka as a person. Both Senaka and I felt that the work should speak for itself and not be written about. We wanted to write for the art enthusiast in an approachable style and hence we decided against a professional art writer."

If that limits the book to something akin to a catalogue "" Bhatkal contests this, preferring to label it, instead, a retrospective so that "viewers form their own opinion and interpretation about the artist's work" "" it does fulfill the criterion of documenting the artist's output. For many of us familiar with Senanayake's more recent work of fantasy rainforests and fantastical beasts, his early influences are interesting. There is a clearly changing style to his canvases "" aspects of Cubism in one series, Gauguin's influence quite clear in others, mythical realism in still other works.

Senanayake's prodigious talent first became obvious to his class teacher when he was six, and he had his first exhibition when he was eight, "with nothing to suggest the work was done by a child artist". By 12, his talent for sculpture too became apparent. Global focus on the child prodigy and nurturing furthered his juvenile career, this time on an international platform, moving one critic to gloat that "Senaka Senanayake's precocity to painting inspires the viewers to compare his ability to Mozart's childhood genius in music".

A keen cricketer, he was feted by galleries and friendly countries across Europe and Asia "" he toured India, met senior artists here, and was invited for tea by Indira Gandhi "" but believed he would grow up to be a surgeon. Little did he know the die of his career had already been cast. Post-Yale, he flirted with architecture as an option, but it was never a serious one: he was too flooded with commissions to paint to consider opting out!

Another aspect of his life developed through similar pressure. Young artists came frequently to him seeking advice and guidance, so Senanayake opened the first of several galleries to promote them without resorting to accepting any commissions. "What matters is to give our artists an opportunity to grow," he says. "Whether anyone appreciates it or not does not bother me."

His works on the rainforests "" he is an environmentalist at heart "" came about as a promise to draw attention to, and therefore attempt to save the rainforests of Sri Lanka, as was his attempt to portray spirituality (both Buddhist and Hindu philosophy are evident in his works), not least as a disciple of Satya Sai Baba. "I do not paint anything negative," he says. "That is Baba's influence on my work."

Bhatkal insists, "As an art lover, I have always felt that most writing on art today is not understood by the art enthusiast. It is full of jargon. My objective as an author and our larger objective as publishers is to present art in a manner that can be understood by any general lover of art."

Senaka, he says, has already sold 2,600 copies in Sri Lanka of a limited edition of 3,000 copies: "In that sense, our desire has been fulfilled." "I suspect that most art books which have elaborate essays by professional writers end up being used only by galleries to promote the artist. That is something we were not keen on doing with this book." To which Senanayake adds, "I would like to do something with my interpretation of ideas, a book that is less pictorial, more philosophical, but the time is not right. At 58, I'm still young..."

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Senaka

Author Harsha Bhatkal
Publisher Popular Prakashan
Pages 178
Price Rs 1,995