| Artists
Tilak Samarawickrema
Tilak Samarawickrema, born in 1943,
is an architect from Sri Lanka with a multi-faceted design background
in art, textile design, animated cinema and architecture. He holds
a Masters Degree in architecture from the University of Moratuwa,
Sri Lanka.
His architecture is minimalist, and his work ranges from residential
buildings, banks, factories, to corporate interiors. He has given
the apparel sector of Sri Lanka a new image by designing factories
with a contemporary aesthetic. His most recent factory, the Mihila
Green Factory at Agalawatta, Sri Lanka, was the first factory worldwide
to win the LEED Gold Award in the New Construction category in 2009.
In 1986-87 he worked as an ILO consultant to the National Design
Center of Sri Lanka to revive and modernize indigenous crafts of
the island. Since the late 1980s, he has designed cotton tapestries
handwoven by traditional weavers of Talagune, Uda Dumbara, the oldest
weaving village in the island. The Deutsches Textilemuseum Krefeld
(1995) and Norsk Form – the architecture and design museum,
Oslo (1998) have held exhibitions of his work. The MOMA design store
in New York marketed his tapestries for almost 8 years. His interest
in textiles took him on a UNICEF consultancy to Guatemala (1990)
where he worked with Mayan Indian Weavers to design products to
be marketed in UNICEF stores world-wide. More recently (June-July
2010), he traveled to Afghanistan as a consultant to IESC (International
Executive Service Corps, Washington) on a USAID funded project to
set up a design center for carpet weaving in Kabul.
His tapestries have been exhibited at the American Center, Colombo-2009,
Norsk Form Museum for Design and Architecture, Oslo-
1998, Gallery Mount Castle, Colombo, Sri Lanka-1997, Design Gallery
Cappellini, Via Monte Napolieone Milan-1995, Deutsches Textilmuseum
Krefeld Germany-1995, Galerie Smend, Colgne-1994, Design Center,
Brussels-1994, Casa Tessuti Lucerne, Switzerland-1992, Werkgalerie
Steinmann, Lucerne, Switzerland-1992, and SHED Design Gallery, Milan-1992.
In his architectural and design studio in Colombo, he is currently
engaged in digital animation using deconstructed images of his tapestries.
His line drawings, initially a doodling habit that began whilst
working in the studio of architect Geoffrey Bawa, later evolved
into interplay of line and space, incorporating the forms and curves
of the Sinhala alphabet. Between 1969 and 1987 he exhibited his
art in Milan, Rome, New York, Sao Paulo and Colombo. His recently
published book, Ink of Lanka (2009), gives a retrospective overview
of his work, synthesizing the line drawings, black and white photographs,
and reviews by eminent art critics Pierre Restany and Bruno Munari,
among others. His art has involved a constant exploration of the
limits of the line. In the 1970s whilst living in Rome and Milan,
he gave these drawings a temporal dimension through his animated
film, Andare of Sri Lanka, which represented Italy at the
Oberhausen Film Festival (1978). More recently, he has translated
his line drawings into life size wire sculptures, which employ light
and shadow as an integral part of their aesthetic.
His work has been published in Domus, Abitare, Modo, Gap, Case,
Design Diffusion News, Interni, and Architettura–OFX, and
also reviewed in the Corriere Della Sera, La Republica, L’Unita,
The Guardian, London, Rheiische post, Koiner Stadt, Stadt Luzern.
Several television documentaries have been produced on his work,
namely, Ink of Lanka - Ya TV, Modern Woven Art of Sri Lanka - Rupavahini
Corporation, Voyage in the Modernity of Weaving – Ya TV, Cinema
Sittam – Rupavahini, Designs for Export-Rupavahini, Silpa–
Teleshan.
Samarawickrema has lectured on his work at Carpenter Center, Harvard
University, Boston; the Aga Khan Foundation, Kabul; I.S.M.E.O. (Institute
for the Study of Mid and Extreme Orient) Rome; the National Institute
of Design, Ahmedabad; University of California, San Diego; Crafts
Council of Australia Sydney; Crafts Revival Trust, New Delhi; Sri
Lanka Institute of Architects National Conference, Colombo; American
Center, Colombo; Fulbright Foundation Colombo.
|
