Timeless canvases of nature from artist with a mission
Marie Alles Fernando holds new exhibition, ‘Ganbarimasu’ at her home
Veteran artist Marie Alles Fernando’s new pre-Christmas exhibition, to be held on December 1, at her Nawala home is titled ‘Ganbarimasu’ - which is Japanese for never giving up, or ‘trying your hardest to achieve an object’. Hung on her home gallery walls amidst cosy chintz chairs and potted plants, are the new canvases, of landscapes, waterscapes and colour harmonies.
This time taking on a philosophical theme, the exhibition is dedicated to “all those who make the world a kinder and more beautiful place by sharing their passions and awakening those of others.”
Marie has, from early days, travelled across the world as well as Sri Lanka, in search of ‘lessons not found in books’. Painting became her medium of expression“the centre of my universe, a driving force for change that enables me to achieve my life’s mission, and makes my life worth living.”
“To become a true artist is a slow journey,” muses Marie, stating that one has to develop techniques to mark the past and fuel the present. The ‘past’ she refers to is her mother, the late Genevieve Edirisinghe who was also an artist, and of course her grandfather, at whose feet she sat.
It is also important “for the present to light the way to a future for the next generation” just as her own gurus Ivor Baptiste and Prof. Douglas Amerasekera of the University of Ceylon, and mentor Harry Pieris of the ’43 Group, nurtured her.
The new exhibition is rather special in that Marie has fitted out her home gallery in style with exquisite lighting. Visitors can appreciate the timeless canvases of nature in exotic-hued silken strokes while moving around.
For her art is always “a marvellous tool for anchoring myself in the present and helping myself reach a state of flow.”
Amidst the new works, the title piece, Ganbarimasu, is a depiction of lotuses one in full bloom, another about to bloom
and yet another that has finished the life work and is about to spread the seeds back to the mud again. It is symbolical of working hard for the search of light - light here being a metaphor for enlightenment, transcending the normal human plane.
Sacred Bo, a large canvas, is an atmospheric rendering of a giant holy tree with a strange presence in unusual colours (pinks and purples) while Garden at Hill
Club captures the alpine mystique of Nuwara Eliya, trees and mountains shrouded in mist and an English garden.
The current exhibition reflects Marie’s work of a lifetime, all tokens of “those rare moments of vision, when everything seems to focus on a particular point” she says. “It may be a loved person, a poem, a sunset, or a moment of pain or ecstasy. (When it happens) the barriers of space and time begin to fall - everything comes together in unity.” In that instant, everything works and the paintings are enduring.
Marie celebrates life and believes that
the festivals of the gods throughout the year keep us in touch with the transcendent world, beyond the miseries of the present life- “for the whole cosmos is a revelation of God- both space and time categories of the mind.”
“The gods are not to be known by the senses or by scientific instruments or mathematical calculations; they are hidden.”
It is in search of these hidden gods by wewas and mountain caves and jungle that Marie travels, the glimpses of which she transmutes through those serene timeless canvases.