Chandrani Sudumenike Wijesooriya is a Sri Lankan artist and an art teacher with more than 30 years experience, who loves to paint the themes of environment, nature and women in the village. She became a full-time artist after her retirement from teaching.
She was brought up in a rural village and was educated in the village school and she was someone who loved art since her childhood. As a student, she was fortunate and skillful to win several awards at national level art competitions and as a result, she became closer to the subject of art, and it became a part of her life. Her subjects of her paintings were what she visioned, heard of, and imagined. She used to deliberate on eye catching natural objects which she envisioned in her mind and subsequently recreated on her canvas.
The environment of her village which was abundant in nature, hills, wooded land, and paddy fields, enriched her artistic senses. Although her old village has now become more semi urban over the years, Chandra still remembers the beauty she enjoyed as a child. Born to a traditional farming family and her exposure to produce, streams, brooks, the scent of paddy fields, and threshing grounds created a deep connection with the environment.
It is correct to say that Chandra's achievements and successes in her artistic career were mostly due to the opportunities she received by her involvement with her friends in the neighborhood and enjoying the beauty of nature. She started her teaching career just after her schooling which paved the way to enrich her imagination and thoughts. Having embraced the village scent, she wanted to study the rural lives and their way of lives more in depth and she saw the hardships and the pain they go through. She used these as the subjects of her artworks.
She lived in many parts of the island during her career which gave Chandra a good opportunity to experience people from different walks of life and natural phenomena which were unique to such areas. These ultimately became the subject of her creations and she is ever grateful and enthusiastic to present what she witnessed in the form of paintings on her canvas for future generations.
Aartzy