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| I love her Madonna with birds |
The only woman in the book:
Five Christian Asian Artists (see July 8 Blog) is internationally known artist from Sri Lanka,
PROF. NALINI M JAYASURIYA. She has exhibited her soul-stirring paintings in Manila, London, Bangkok, Paris, Toronto, Tokyo, Jerusalem and New York. She has also lectured on sacred art in many universities, including Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut, and Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan. She was artist in residence for two years at the Overseas Ministries Study Center (OMSC) in New Haven.
Nalini started her career as a teacher at St Thomas College Mount Lavinia Sri Lanka. She was awarded Sri Lanka's highest honour for the Arts by the Government of Sri Lanka. Numerous books featuring her paintings as well as her poetry have been published in several languages.
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| Three Kings |
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| Solomon & Sheba |
She was featured in the 2007 exhibition "The Christian Story: Five Asian Artists Today" at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York City.
I love the flowing lines of her art as well as the vivid colors she uses.
"I come from a land of rich, ancient, and diverse cultures and traditions. While I carry the enriching influences of both West and East, I express myself through an Asian and Christian consciousness with respect for all confessions of religious faith."
She once wrote: As Time spread lighted wings and flew over all the world, the Voice spoke, and I heard, as I stood listening on the Seashore of the world: "Go," the Voice ordered. "Do not walk in the footprints you see. Make your own footprints in the Sand. This will be your Covenant and your Reward."
"She is unafraid of any tension between the spiritual styles of East and West. Her art, its colorful flow and simplicity, is often a fusion of traditions. She has made a vocation of pursuing the world’s secret beauty and its savior God, sharing her responses and inviting ours". (Ray Waddle, Yale U)
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| Mother & Child |
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| Flowers & Prayers |
"In an age when our cultural image makers manifest an almost pathological preoccupation with the terrible, the dysfunctional, and the tragic, relying as they do for their very livelihood on the human fascination with shocking spectacle, Nalini offers us, through her art, the gift of peace," writes OMSC executive director Jonathan Bonk in the preface to
A Time for My Singing.
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| Birds Singing & St. Francis |
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| Reigning Lord |
"Art imitates, sublimates, and exalts life," she writes in
A Time For My Singing, "freeing the vision from anecdote and offering its radiant peace to all who would receive it."
Thank you for this lovely tribute to a lovely artist. In the 90s I interviewed her when she was a theologian/artist in residence at the Louisville Presbytreian HQ & then helped in bringing her to Dayton OH for a couple of days.
ReplyDeleteI loved Nalini as a person and she was close friends with my aunt and uncle in New Haven during her time at Yale. where can I find a work of hers for sale. I wil never forget our talk one day. Lovely person.
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