Our teacher of Arts: Anusha Gajaweera

We must pay a small tribute to our wonderful Sathkara art teacher, Mr. Anusha Gajaweera. He is both a painter and sculptor. He has been a visiting lecturer in several state universities including the Faculty of Architecture, University of Moratuwa, and Sri Palee College in Horana. Throughout his artistic career he exhibited his artistic work in many local and international group exhibitions and won several awards and recognition for his work including the award for Environmental Day AEPO Asian Environmental Organisation, Sri Lanka and Japan.

Anusha Gajaweera: Cameleon with tie

Currently, he works in Colombo, but he boards the flat above the classroom at the Sathkara Centre in Dolahena. The school has been very fortunate in having him as our teacher of visual arts, always ready to organise workshops for our young people. He also knows a great many art students and professionals whom he invites to our school.

Here we bring a small interview with Anusha, published in Sunday Observer 22 July 2012:

"Through my paintings I always try to convey the socio-political idea that I have towards the society. It is not that I try to express vanguard ideas or criticise the existing socio-political realities of the society, rather to humiliate it. I use 'the tie' as a metaphor in all the paintings which I exhibit."

"The tie is not related to our culture but as most of the authority systems which came to our society and got established during the colonial period; tie is also one of them. Even though after the colonial period, we are still ruled by the authorities' that established during that era and we have forgotten that fact and tend to believe we are a free nation and liberated country. Therefore, I use the tie as a metaphor in every painting as I believe it generates a strong idea."

"Salvador Dali is one of the painters I really got inspired by and I like his painting which has surrealism artistic trend," Anusha Gajaweera said. "Today there are many artistes who use different mediums of art to express their political viewpoints without giving attention to artistic taste. Though I too try to express my political ideology through my paintings, I believe those who don't understand or are not interested in politics can still enjoy my paintings because I have tried my best to maintain the artistic taste on my paintings," he said.