The intimate gallery and café located at its better known and more popular address – The Global Towers, was the first ever pioneer star class hotel to appear on today’s well known Marine Drive in 2005, when the sea-front driveway was merely an undeveloped strip of road. Amidst all its different popular entertainment and dining venues operating within its premises the Global Towers recently added its latest bistro style café operating in conjunction with an Art Gallery, aptly named, ‘Global Gallery & Café’ – opening its doors to a wide range of invitees including people from different walks of life, from professionals such as doctors to leading business persons to artistes and a wide range of people from the leisure sector.
At a time when space for more art activities are welcome, a few critical observations were visible at its opening evening, and the officials responsible should take note of these shortcomings and eradicate them promptly if their vision is to operate the venue not only as a successful restaurant but also as an outstanding art space as planned, and strive to achieve that goal. The few shortcomings are stated below.
Some of the paintings currently hung around the water feature, as one enters the inner café should be much bigger, as the space between the walls and the railing protecting the fish pond is far too narrow for viewing the pictures. It may have been a better option for the curator to display the larger paintings at a higher level inside the café. It is not usual for a gallery to hang pictures too high above the eye-level where viewers will not be able to scrutinize the painting for more details such as, materials used and colour.
Speaking of colour it must be said, the ‘fluorescent’ lighting with a blue haze killed the original colours of the work, making them dull in appearance. This could be a drawback when selling the artworks and deter artists from wanting to showcase their work in a gallery that is noted for poor sales. Besides, the spotlights were fixed on the ceiling way too high and hardly focused on the paintings below.
Examining the whole collection by the group of eminent artists, it was evident that there were a few works displayed without any reference to them, which were found to be not the work of any of the current artist exhibiting at the gallery. These pictures confused the viewers and were a hindrance to the finely curated work of the group. It is evident that the gallery and café did not have a broad wall space to hang bigger pictures than those displayed at present in the café. Hence, it would be sensible to display the bigger pictures outside, by the pond.
The present set of artists is a fine combination of ‘mix & match’ of a variety ranging from Noeline Fernando’s fine sense of composition and colour reflecting her wide knowledge as an artist and stamping her identity as the most senior and experienced within the group.
In contrast is the work of a more modern artist, Sampath Amunugama, who is at present teaching Art at S. Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia. He displays his fine expressions with a range of black brush strokes on rough brown paper, simply framed in black, which stood out as contemporary.
Prasad Abu Bakr on the other hand, actually appeared on the scene many years ago by making a name for himself as a journalist and an amateur photographer at the Sunday Observer, and has displayed a collection combining his passion for photography with his childhood hobby of painting, resulting in a series of unusual images using the medium of collage.
Designer Mihiri Devendra’s creative artifacts for the ‘Semman’ brand contributing towards handicraft development in the North added contrast to the exhibition. Finally, the creations by renowned sculptor Premadasa Badugoda Hewa added that slight twist towards drawing the viewer’s attention from the art hanging on the walls to three dimensional images made of brass, terracotta and metal sitting on cement surfaces displayed around the gallery – though some of the pieces were too small in size, thus failing to attract attention. Nevertheless, they stood-out as masterpieces by the maestro.
The exhibition ends on Feb 28 paving the way for yet another group of artists to show their works through the month of March.