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Koralegedara Pushpakumara received his higher education in Painting and Sculpture from the University of Kelaniya, and has since then been a notable presence in the contemporary art scene in Sri Lanka as a participant of the 90s Art Trend. Pushpakumara continues to tread the career path of professional artistry with success, and is currently based in Colombo. He is also one of the founding members of the Theertha International Artists’ Collective, a group of contemporary artists that work towards the betterment of the Sri Lankan art scene. He currently lives and works in Pannipitiya, Colombo.
Pushpakumara’s early works are mainly paintings emphasizing the human figure, highlighting his personal experience of anguish as a citizen affected by the civil war. His paintings express pain and suffering caused by the brutalities that were around him during the 1990s in Sri Lanka, and emphasize the individual being affected by external socio-political and cultural events. As an artist who mainly worked alongside expressionism, presenting quite personal and subjective responses to the civil war, focusing mainly on the emotional effect created on the viewer, Pushpakumara’s style was unique in the manner in which it produced a more mature, sharper and calculated technique of art. His paintings from the early 2000s are therefore alluring to the eye, while also being emotionally moving as well.
Pushpakumara has since then entered an arena of experimentation with sculpture created using barbed wire. His latest solo exhibition Goodwill Hardware is a manifestation of his craft using the materiality of barbed wire to engage with the same issues of human pain and anguish. Other material such as transparent tubes, barrier tape, tent material, metal chains and nails were used to complement the craft created using the barbed wire. Pushpakumara had also manipulated the space that had been given to him by the art gallery, ensuring that the white structure of the spacious room allowed him to play with the motif of the barbed wire, with the art defining the space and not the other way around. The artist’s aim was to portray daily dangers and everyday chaos through material that is easily at his disposal.
While the dangerous quality of the barbed wire still exists, it is limited by Pushpakumara’s manipulation of the material to recreate situations that are essentially secure. This can be identified as a commentary on dangerous political ruses and maneuverings that attempt to hide and forget human suffering caused by past unacceptable socio-political circumstances. The installation Barbed Wire which was exhibited at the Colombo Biennale 2016 is quite similar to the concept behind “Goodwill Hardware”. Three artworks using barbed wire as the main motif were part of the installation, bringing into focus the extremist political behaviour of certain religious and ethnic communities in Sri Lanka during the post-war period. The materialistic construction of the three artworks sheds light on the segregation, brutalization and the growing sense of insecurity that were being perpetuated during the time in the socio-cultural and socio-political arenas, through the cleveruse of barbed wire.
Jagath Weerasinghe interprets Pushpakumara’s craft as such, especially in relation to Goodwill Hardware: “Pushpakumara posits the ‘material’ as the main expressive element in the artwork. In other words, this illustrates the use of ‘material’ in the artwork retaining the same meaning it has within the human/ cultural usage as well as with the same meaning they are used in extraordinary socio-cultural and political behavior at present.”
| Name of Exhibition | Year | Place |
|---|---|---|
| Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture | 1997 | Heritage Art Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Exhibition of Painting | 1998 | Kandy Arts Council, Kandy, Sri Lanka |
| 3rd International Art Exhibition | 1998 | National Art Gallery, Sri Lanka |
| 9th Asian Art Biennale | 1999 | Gallery of Silpakala Academy, Dhaka, Bangladesh |
| No Order Group | 1999 | VAFA Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Artists for Peace: Flag Exhibition | 2000 | Selected Public Places, Sri Lanka |
| An Art Exhibition for Peace and Reconciliation | 2000 | Gallery 706, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| A New Visual Vocabulary in Contemporary Sri Lanka | 2000 | Volspark Enschede, Netherlands |
| Four Artists: Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture | 2000 | Lionel Wendt Art Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Four Artists: Exhibition of Painting | 2000 | The Havelock Place Bungalow, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Exhibition of Paintings | 2000 | Paradise Road Galleries, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Exhibition of Paintings | 2000 | Kandalama Hotel, Dambulla, Sri Lanka |
| 2001Reflections, Four Artists: An Exhibition of Painting | 2001 | Indian Cultural Centre, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| 1st VASL International Art Exhibition | 2001 | Amin Gulgee Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan |
| Exhibition of Paintings | 2002 | Barefoot Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Contemporary Sri Lankan Art | 2004 | G.T.Z. Office, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Aham Puram | 2004 | Public Library, Jaffna, Sri Lanka |
| Urban and the Individual | 2004 | Finomenal Space Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture | 2004 | Gallery 71, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Exhibition of Paintings | 2004 | Paradise Road Galleries, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Contemporary Sri Lankan Art | 2005 | Museum of far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, Sweden. |
| Contemporary Sri Lankan Art: Artists for Peace | 2005 | National Art Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings | 2005 | Finomenal Space Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings | 2006 | Barefoot Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Goodwill Hardware | 2009 | Theertha Red Dot Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Theertha – Works on Paper” | 2009 | National Art Gallery, Male, Maldives |
| Imagining Peace, 1st Colombo Art Biennale | 2009 | Colombo, Sri Lanka |
Other Publicaitons the Artist has been mentioned in |
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Ref :PK 40
Title :Face and Phallus (ii)
Signed :Upper Right
Year :1999
Measurements in Cms :78 x 118
Material Used :Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions in Cms. :78 x 118
Ref :PK 38
Title :The Head (iv)
Signed :Lower Bottom Right
Year :2000
Measurements in Cms :56.5 x 46
Material Used :Acrylic on Jute/Canvas
Dimensions in Cms. :56.5 x 46
Ref :PK 48
Title :Female Nude (i)
Signed :Lower Right
Year :2003
Measurements in Cms :82 x 61
Material Used :Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions in Cms. :82 x 61
Ref :PK 6
Title :Unveiling the Confusion (vi)
Signed :Lower Middle
Year :2004
Measurements in Cms :65 x 52
Material Used :Mixed Media
Dimensions in Cms. :65 x 52
Ref :PK 35
Title :Man with a Kettle (ii)
Signed :Middle Left
Year :2004
Measurements in Cms :105 x 140
Material Used :Mixed Media on Canvas
Dimensions in Cms. :105 x 140
Ref :PK 46
Title :The Man (iii) ii
Signed :Lower Right
Year :2004
Measurements in Cms :97 x 68
Material Used :Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions in Cms. :97 x 68
Ref :PK 47
Title :The Man (ii) i
Signed :Upper Middle
Year :2004
Measurements in Cms :96 x 75
Material Used :Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions in Cms. :96 x 75
Ref :PK 1
Title :Man with a Jug (ii)
Signed :Upper Right
Year :2005
Measurements in Cms :96 x 75
Material Used :Mixed Media on Canvas
Dimensions in Cms. :96 x 75
Ref :PK 2
Title :Man with a Vase (I)
Signed :Left Middle
Year :2005
Measurements in Cms :44 x 52
Material Used :Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions in Cms. :44 x 52
Ref :PK 7
Title :Man with a Kettle (V)
Signed :Lower Middle
Year :2005
Measurements in Cms :92 x 71
Material Used :Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions in Cms. :92 x 71
Ref :PK 36
Title :Man with a Cigarette (V)
Signed :Lower Middle
Year :2005
Measurements in Cms :108 x 89
Material Used :Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions in Cms. :108 x 89
Ref :PK 37
Title :Friends (I)
Signed :Lower Right
Year :2005
Measurements in Cms :86 x 125
Material Used :Mixed Media on Canvas
Dimensions in Cms. :86 x 125
| Year | Institute | Qualification |
|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Institute of Aesthetic Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. | BFA (Painting and Sculpture) |
| 2003 | Postgraduate Institute of Archeology, University of Kelaniya. Sri Lanka. | Diploma in Archaeology |
| 2014 | Postgraduate Institute of Archeology, University of Kelaniya. Sri Lanka. | Reading for MA (Art History) - CHECK |