Photos courtesy of Kamala Vasuki
A. Mark was an eminent artist and teacher who played a significant role in the artistic and cultural heritage of the Tamil community.
He was born in 1933 in Gurunagar, Jaffna and educated at St. Patrick’s College, Jaffna, learning art as a young student of artist S. Benedict. He was selected to the College of Fine Arts in Colombo in 1953 and graduated in 1957. He was trained by David Paynter.
Mark worked as a schoolteacher, teaching art at Hardley College, Point Pedro from 1957 to 1976 and transferred to Kokuvil Hindu College where he taught until his retirement.
Mark was not only a good artist but also an excellent art teacher. Driven by his passion for teaching young people in modern art, he established the Holiday Painters Group and taught many young students, organizing exhibitions of his students’ work in Jaffna. His art classes were restarted in the mid-1980s by his family in their small house in Gurunagar. He also worked with artist Sivapragasam in teaching arts students and played a critical role in encouraging young girls to study art seriously.
The theme of his early paintings was mostly religious and he adopted water colour wash drawing techniques. From the early 1970s he started to reflect the issues of the community and focused on the rhythms of lines.
He was interested in expressing emotions through human figures, using distortions rather than realism. Later his style changed in accordance with the war situation in Jaffna. He started to document the events of the time through lines.
In the 1980s, with the escalation of the war and challenging socio-political environment in Jaffna Mark, along with other artists, realised the crucial role of artistic expression. He continued to support his students, particularly his female students, to keep creating art as a space and voice in those terrible times. There were several art exhibitions and Mark’s paintings began to gain popularity. In the exhibition Towards the Future in Jaffna in 1986, he captured the attention of ordinary people. The exhibition showcased his work on ragas as well as depicting contemporary events. He organized many solo and joint exhibitions with his students in Jaffna.
Mark was always interested in experimenting with his painting style. In the 1990s he began to create new work using different materials because arts materials were banned as part of the war time embargo that lasted for some years. He didn’t stop his art although art materials were scarce. He used art to express himself and continuously supported his students to do so. When there was so much destruction around them, his students kept creating art.
He started to draw on magazine papers and newspapers, creating his artwork by using the colours and lines of the printed paper. He collected materials from the garbage such as plastic bottles, broken parts of anything including blasted pieces of shells to create his sculptures.
He and his students have exhibited their works in spaces that are not considered to be galleries – on the damaged walls of schools and in open spaces.
In 1995 during the exodus from Jaffna, he was displaced to Vanni and later lived in Mannar. He had fallen sick and his hand was paralysed. He started to draw with his other hand to reproduce the works that he had left behind in Jaffna. He used cardboard boxes as his canvas. He continued to paint and teach until his last days in 2000.
He brought art out of its traditional forms and spaces of studios, galleries and art materials. He inspired many youth, particular women, to become passionate about art at a time when no one saw any future in it.
In the words of Asai Rasiah, an artist who lived in Jaffna during Mark’s time, “Mark marks the turning point of modern art in Jaffna. He was responsible for weaning away a generation rooted in the romantic tradition of Ravi Varma”.
As Mark always proudly said, “I will be known by the fame of my students”. His students are practicing art in various parts of the world and carrying on his legacy. They include Arunthathy (UK), Vasuki (Sri Lanka), Krishnarajah (UK) and Ramani (Sri Lanka).
An exhibition of Mark’s work will be held in Mannar from March 13 to 16.
