Laki Senanayake – painter, sculptor, architect, landscape designer, and inventor – is woken from deep sleep by someone tugging on his toe. There are strangers in his house and they have one question – can we see the garden? As he has so many times before, Laki says yes. Sri Lankans have long embraced Laki … Continue reading
Tissa Ranasinghe keeps his sculptures on a long, low table in his living room, shrouded in a white bed sheet. Under there, you will find the most unlikely companions – a faceless man astride a flying Garuda; a pair of lovers, entwined; a bull in a Red Indian head dress; the virtuous Kannagi and the … Continue reading
It keeps recurring – this conviction that I’m trapped in a comic book with my interviewee, a German who goes by the moniker ‘Nomad’. Taken anecdote by anecdote, the life of this Berlin-based street artist could easily be shaped to fit some alternate superhero myth. Consider all that flitting about Berlin by night and the … Continue reading
When artist Dumith Kulasekera found himself staring for hours into the eyes of his mother, he discovered it wasn’t an entirely comfortable experience. “That was the first time we were doing that actually,” he says of his decision to ask her to pose for him. Titled ‘(The) M-Other,’ it was in part a meditation on … Continue reading
Dressed in his regulation sarong and t-shirt, Laki Senanayake looks like there are few things he takes seriously – certainly, he doesn’t count his reputation as an ‘artist’ among them. “I’m assured by various people…that I’m Sri Lanka’s leading artist – God knows where I’m leading anyone,” he says, grinning. We meet Laki at Barefoot, … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 