By Kamanthi Wickramasinghe 

In her latest exhibition titled Sankhārā, which in Pāli means formations or volitional formations especially with regards to mental processes, ceramicist, painter and sculptor Asela Abeywardene attempts to incorporate your thought processes into ceramic sculptures. Amongst various sculptural mediums, Abeywardene specialises in ceramic art as she believes that a ceramic artist needs to learn to let go of control at a certain point and to be accepting of natural phenomena.

In a recent interview with the Daily Mirror Life, Abeywardene spoke about the inspiration behind her latest exhibition and sculpture art in South Asia.

Tell us about the inspiration behind your latest exhibition. 
From the time we are born, every living moment is spent on creating layers and layers of thoughts in our minds. At times, we are aware of these, but most times we are not. This collection of sculptures is an attempt to capture this intangible and elusive concept and present it in a tangible, apparent manner. 

The simplified, minimal, abstracted human figure represents ‘life as we know it’: how we spend our lives in pursuit of contentment, although we are hardly ever truly content. We adorn ourselves with achievements, one after the other, but more often than not, we are unable to find true peace. The decorated, ‘adorned’ figure is a representation of this undeniable human condition. 

The figure is integrated with an abstracted vessel, which indicates the formations of our minds. These vessels, though seemingly solid or concrete, contain nothing but emptiness. Often, when we peel the layers of our thought processes, what we discover is only emptiness or nothingness. 
It is this reality that I endeavour to present with this collection. 

What sort of research/experience goes into relating real-life thought processes with your sculptures, such as the concept behind Sankhārā? 
I think visual art is a language. As with any language, one needs to keep learning and refining in order to communicate or express inner thought processes. Just as we learn letters, words, tones, gestures, etc, to convey a message, an artist needs to learn the basic techniques, behaviour and temperament of the medium, how the medium can be manipulated and used to say what needs to be said. For this, technical and conceptual research is integral. Research should be a constant and continuous part of an artistic career. Ceramic art is such a vast area which needs to be researched extensively. 

As for the concept, I usually work on concepts which are highly personal and relevant to my life. I often observe the workings of my own mind and take note of thought patterns which prevail in a given context. This collection was born because I found myself pondering over how our minds tend to create narratives. I studied this from modern psychological as well as   Buddhist psychological perspectives. I had to find a way to make an extremely intangible and elusive concept seem tangible and apparent. 

Your work has always portrayed meaningful messages, such as the strength of the female body and various other themes. Tell us what it feels like to be a sculpture artist in this day and age?

There are many sculptural media. I have chosen ceramic clay as my specific medium, and being a ceramic sculptor is very different to being any other sculptor. The process of making a ceramic artwork is unique and extremely resource-intensive, and long. A ceramic artist needs to learn to let go of control at a certain point and to be accepting of natural phenomena. A ceramicist works with the interplay of earth, water, fire and air. So a deep respect for these elements is necessary to continue a ceramic art practice. 

In this day and age, it is not necessary to seek material from nature. We can purchase material from suppliers, and the process can be made easier because of technological advances. Still, we have to be very conscious of how our practice impacts the environment and the planet and ensure the minimisation of resource wastage. 

I feel that in the current Sri Lankan context, female sculptors are only a very few. I am not certain as to why that is, but I feel that more women need to enter the sculptural art sphere 

Where does Sri Lankan sculpture art stand within the South Asian context? 
I believe that all cultures and art forms are influenced by others. Historically, we have been influenced by the Indian subcontinent, the far east and the west. Having said that, we have our very own, very rich artistic traditions and these traditions, knowingly or unknowingly, influence contemporary art. 

When it comes to where we stand in the global or Asian art market, I think we have a long way to go. Ours is a small country, a small market compared to giants like India or China. However, the inherent talent and intellect we possess should not be discounted. We are a resilient nation, and visual artists have always succeeded in portraying this resilience and courage. We know how to be resourceful even during the hardest of times. I don’t believe that we need to compete with any other nation. We only have to look within and find our very own unique ‘voice’. 

What could visitors expect at your latest exhibition? 
With this collection, I have attempted to showcase ceramics as a medium of expressive contemporary art. There is a certain fluidity, flexibility, delicateness and intricacy which no other medium can achieve, but ceramic can. My effort was to enhance this. 

The audience would get the opportunity to view how the ceramic vessel forms have been manipulated into abstracted, organic forms and how they have been integrated with simplified human forms. I have employed varied surface decorative techniques such as carving, slip trailing, sgraffito, adding texture, glazing and using underglaze. I hope this collection will give the audience the opportunity to experience the potential of ceramics as a sculptural art form.