NAP 2022: Two ladies and a man plan a reunion through art

Art by Namalee

Art nourishes your soul and can also fix your mood. You can also buy art and get closer to the colours and the meaning they portray. But it would be one challenging task to get close to an artist and get him or her to talk about life and times as a creative person because very few outsiders are afforded that privilege. Why? Because artists are very private people and move within a closely-knit community. They rarely let anyone in and this piece of writing is about one such attempt which produced a success story.  

Artists Anup Vega, Namalee S. Real and Pia Fernando are close friends and accomplished artists who have come together to organise an art exhibition which they have scheduled from November 18 to 20 at Supumal Foundation at Barnes Place in Colombo 7. What’s so important about the exhibition is that it’s after a long time since Covid that they are exhibiting their art in public. Vega speaking to the Daily Mirror said that though he enjoyed the quarantine period he was also counting his fingers before restrictions would be lifted and artists could come out in public and display their art. “I was waiting till the ‘face panty’ dropped and to be welcomed in the city,” said Vega on a lighter vein. He said that the quarantine period didn’t bother him much because artists do isolate themselves from time to time and that period often serves as a process of healing and recovery. The exhibition is titled NAP 2022; the name formed in a way indicting the first letter of each artist’s name and from another perspective underscoring that the artists have woken up from Covid.  

Vega speaking further about the quarantine period said, “The lockdown time was used to rediscover deeper layers of expression and survival or lifestyle”.  

The lockdown time was used to rediscover deeper layers of expression and survival or lifestyle - Vega

The lockdown and isolation worked like a pressure cooker; now I am quite excited about finally having this show with my friends - Pia

Namalee, who has Sri Lankan roots, is a passionate artist, who was taught to paint by Marcello Real. Many who

know Namalee and have seen her art maintain that her works are poetic artistry that uses a visual storytelling motif with the elegant use of colour.  
Asked what had happened during the three year interval due to Covid, Namalee had this to say, “We were going to have this exhibition in 2020, but we couldn’t. I, as an individual, am better prepared than in 2020. I know myself better also”.  

Pia is of Swiss origin and hopes to exhibit about 20 of her paintings. This whole exhibition is Pia’s idea and the other two readily agreed; given that this is an opportunity for a reunion of the trio. This is what Pia had to say about Covid and time spent in preparing for the exhibition, “There is a sense of a new beginning and freedom. The lockdown and isolation worked like a pressure cooker; now I am quite excited about finally having this show with my friends. As if we all had been in a different realm and now we can at last meet again freely and celebrate life through art”. Pia’s last exhibition was held 20 years ago.  

Most artists put a theme for their work. There are also so many different stories behind most of the artwork and the themes that accompany them. But Namalee prefers to keep her work untitled. “My artwork is like a dream and a dream can be interpreted in one way or another. It can be interpreted in one way today and in a different way tomorrow and that’s what’s interesting and so beautiful about art,” she said. Like many artists, her paintings have a secret meaning. “I’ve told the secret in my art only to some of my closest friends,” said Namalee.  
Art lovers too might find out some of these secrets if they visit the exhibition; and they might even have an opportunity to meet these artists and converse with them. Some of the art will be for sale.