JC Rathnayake | Isomorphic series

J.C. Rathnayake was born in 1978 in Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka. Rathnayake completed his education in printmaking at the University of Visual and Performing Arts in Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2008. Rathnayake states that when special identities are transcended by economic reality, we encounter stimulations that are deprived of substance. The artist believes in all-consuming, total and global system that colonises the space of the planet and its disparate temporalities, there is an underlying uniformity despite the apparent diversification of the cultural sphere. At every corner, we are confronted with the tiresome phenomena of repetitive imitations and the constant recycling of the past. Rathnayake’s art attempts to combat the increasingly cluttered world, where minds are constantly being bombarded by imagery and information at a speed that does not afford the time to process thoughts. The multiple copies of Buddha-like and people images ensure that the mind does not focus on any specific image in favour of using peripheral vision to see the whole, which leads to an uncluttered mind by giving it a much needed break from focused processing in favour of it getting an overall relaxing feeling from the paintings. In this way Rathnayake’s art combats the increasingly cluttered world we live in where our minds are being constantly bombarded by imagery and information at faster and faster speeds with less and less processing time. His pieces, therefore give us hope, they expose the soul to spiritual enlightenment, and on closer inspection, show pieces of newspaper with Sinhala writing, the latter of which uses concentric patterns to convey messages about an island that is deeply impenetrable and complex and yet simple and divine when taken at its purest. J C Rathnayake says “Man, who is a powerless might when alone, rises, as a destructive force together in a group against nature, as well as against himself. Thereby he destroys himself. He should go back to nature for refuge and meditate on life. Nature should be his focus for meditation.

Medium - Mixed media