Kamala Viasuki was born in 1966. Through numerous tribulations, Kamala grew up in Jaffna, observing. She witnessed the tragedies of war and the tsunami transpire in front of her own eyes. She experienced these and many other misfortunes and survived to transform into a deeply thought out, exceptional artist.  Her artwork creates a tremendously unique blend of trepidations and uneasy fears with fragility, kindness, forgiveness and compassion. The suffering expressed, especially in her early works, are so true, yet they are suspended in such merciful mystery that the allure of the painting supersedes. The incredible harshness of the subjects of her works are made subtle, almost subliminal, by the gentleness of her colors and strokes.

One can genuinely understand the subtle changes that her work takes throughout the years of disasters in congruence with the blossoming of a gentle soul that is created through these experiences. She says that she is 'happy' now, that through her art she has released her pain, anguish, the sense of helplessness. She equates her transforming art much like a diary, a release for her subconscious.

Partaking as an observing painter, creating installations as well as cartoons since 1986, taking in all that she has experienced, Kamala has found the magical balance between outrage and compassion in her art. Not for commission, not for ego, not for sale. One can indeed perceive there was talent, right from the start. Kamala gives credit for her ability to express her unique art to the one who first taught her, Mr. A. Mark. He taught her to use whatever material is available to her at the time to express her art. This was the only lesson she needed, for she has used newspapers, bits and pieces of crayons, glue, cardboard, whatever was available at the time to continue expressing her deepest feelings through art, not violence. Not brutality.

When asked what her favorite painting she herself has created is, the answer purely explains Kamala Vasuki’s thinking. It is a work called 'Letter From Amma', a collage of a letter that had taken a month to get to her because of expensive troubles in the country. It was a letter she finally received after her mothers passing away. The final letter from a mother to her daughter full of blessings and love. When Kamala speaks of this painting/collage you can feel the fragile crack in her heart.

Kamala is an artist with passion, reality and truth behind her. With all the many insane, unacceptable and unbelievable experiences throughout her life, for this true lady to be such a gentle flowerlike example of feminism to and for young women of the day is a hidden gem. Her art does not speak of violence, her art does not speak of rebellion hatred. Her art speaks of womanhood. Yes, we suffer, but we learn to forgive, yes we are beaten, yet we learn to survive. She never paints with the mind of a victim, but the mind of a survivor. She does not look back and scorn and regret and criticize, she speaks of how we as women, do not need to act like a man to be victorious, to be happy. Through her gentle, yet completely factual art, she shows how though men and women may be on different paths, that the word strength, the word love, the word compassion, comes from the heart of a woman. That is her feminism. That is her art. And very frankly, her art is unique because it comes from pure, naive experience.

Kamala Vasuki recently finished a retrospective exhibition in Batticaloa on April 10th. She says her works are currently resting at her house. Her current works are political cartoons, drawn exquisitely and gently with a message that gives a punch.

One thing that Kamala said is that art has helped her through her life and that after all that we have all gone through “My happiness now comes out of art, through all the terrible things that I have lived through.” The goal in and of our lives, according to Kamala, is to reach a point where we are satisfied, happy. When one looks at her paintings throughout the ages, one can truly see that she has finally reached a point in her life where she is indeed, happy.

Written by Namalee Siriwardhane
Edited by Azara Jaleel