Sri Lankan artist, D. Raja Segar, held his solo exhibition at the Walawwa - “The Bungalow” in Melbourne recently.
Segar displayed several interesting old and new works of art, including oils, watercolour, acrylic and mixed medium. The chief guest at the exhibition was the Consul General of Sri Lanka in Melbourne, Kithsiri Herath. Many Sri Lankan and Australian art enthusiasts attended the exhibition, and the event was a great success.
The main work of art featured was the “Village Tea Boutique”, an Oil painting completed in 2014 depicting some of the well-known brands of Sri Lanka.
This vibrant-coloured painting has been accepted by the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) as part of its permanent collection. The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) is the oldest public art gallery in Australia, established in 1861, and houses a collection that spans from ancient civilisations to contemporary artworks from all around the world. It is the very first Sri Lankan painting and the very first Sri Lankan artist to be featured in the permanent collection of the NGV in Melbourne.
“This painting was originally done for a greeting card in watercolour. The Unilever chairman Mike Thompson bought this card from a hotel bookshop and wanted a painting with several Unilever posters in it,” Segar added. Segar explains his art form as “Cubism”, a revolutionary new approach to representing reality invented at the start of the 1900s. The art form was created by artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, where different views of objects or figures are brought together in the same picture, resulting in paintings that appear fragmented and abstracted.
Segar’s Inception to painting is rather an unorthodox tale. As a self-taught artist, Segar learned most of the techniques and forms through art books and magazines and experimenting with various mixed media. His style is unique in his own nature. He started by making his own greeting cards.
Gradually these cards gained popularity, and he started to print his cards and sell them in bookshops. Later, a customer who purchased one of his cards wanted a painting done on canvas, leading Segar to start his new chapter as an artist.
Segar captures various forms and stages of life, including religious paintings and local life, such as tea-pluckers, fishermen, vendors, musicians, village women and erotic scenes. His drawings and paintings capture the past and present impressions in Sri Lanka, portraying both positive and negative aspects of life.
Lately, he has captured the struggles of locals due to the economic crisis. Segar stated, “There is a story behind everything I draw. I get inspiration through things I see, such as books, magazines, paintings of other artists and things I see from day-to-day life.”
Making this artwork in the permanent collection of the NGV was the idea of David Ajit Jayatileke, director of Vicmark. The process was coordinated by Wayne Crothers, the Senior Curator of Asian Art at the NGV.