LASTING IMPRESSION
Joy Laking spent two months touring Sri Lanka, a tropical paradise, but still recovering from a brutal civil war and tsunami
Joy Laking has travelled the world to further her artistic endeavours and is opening her studio to exhibit her impressions of Sri Lanka.
TRURO, N.S. – A man thatching his roof. A street seller hawking onions by the roadside. Two school buses turned rollercoasters.
These were just a few snapshots of everyday life in Sri Lanka, a country that is inspiring Bass River’s Joy Laking to create new art.
“It’s just a wonderful way to sit and watch the life of people going on around you,” said Laking, who travelled across Sri Lanka from February through April. “Also, art is really universal so if you don’t speak the language, you’ll manage just fine."
Indeed, sketching and painting scenes of every life can be a great way to break the ice.
Sitting at a village restaurant, Laking sketched a man trying to hitch up an ox to a cart.
“He was pulling one way and the ox was pulling the other,” recalled Laking. “The girl who served me said, ‘that’s my grandfather.’”
Later, the girl’s brother and a friend came on a motorbike and drove Laking to the man’s house, a humble village home. She gave him her sketch.
Laking travelled all over Sri Lanka from north to south, starting in the capital Colombo with its ultra-modern architecture.
Elsewhere, however, she saw a country still recovering from a decades-long civil war that ended in 2009, and from the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
One northeastern town, Mullaitivu, was on the war’s old front line. Laking said the community was still reeling, from the effects.
A man on a motorbike told her the truth about those years.
“He lost 17 members of his family in the tsunami and that was in the middle of the civil war,” said Laking.
However, she saw a still beautiful landscape that inspired her paintings. Laking visited many beaches, as well as the tropical interior, full of animals such as monkeys and elephants.
Laking also enjoyed visiting mountainside tea plantations, a legacy of the British colonial period.
Everywhere Laking went, she drew. Often it was images of people going about their daily lives. Others were paintings of massive Buddhist temples and statues of monks in towns.
But the most unusual sight for Laking was two school buses with musical horns in a carpark.
“It was duelling school buses,” said Laking. “They pulled away just before crashing and the kids screamed. It was like a rollercoaster ride.”
Sri Lanka was just the latest foreign trip made by Laking. She has travelled all over South America, Europe and even to New Zealand and Japan among other countries. The aim of such journeys is always fresh inspiration for her artwork.
Laking will be displaying more than 50 new paintings from Sri Lanka Oct. 19-20, and Oct. 26-27 at her Bass River studio.
She will also be showcasing work produced here in Nova Scotia. This includes oil paintings completed in the front seat of her car while in Lunenburg.
People can enjoy viewing illustrations done by Laking for an upcoming book titled Colours in Winter, published by Pottersfield Press. It is the first book Laking has written and illustrated and is due out in November.
Laking’s studio is located at 6730 Hwy. 2 in Bass River. Show times on all days are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information and updates, visit www. joylakinggallery.com, call 902890-8450 or 902-890-8730.