Ania Kelegama Portfolio 2023

As an artist, my grandmother has inspired me to follow in her footsteps. I remember sitting with her as a child and watching her recreate images around her whether it be an orange on the dinner table or the elephant from my math textbook. Because of her, I continuously pursued art through my childhood up until now. Besides my grandmother, I am also inspired by Robert Kushner, Kent Williams, and Claude Monet.

Art has provided me with a creative outlet to reconnect with my culture and also allowed me to break away from the rigid boundaries of my mind. My past work has been rooted in embracing my culture through self-portraits of me wearing traditional Sri Lankan clothing, but my current work breaks away from my traditional portraits into more abstract concepts. My original creative process required finding something meaningful and photographing those ideas before painting with oil paint. These new works, however, represent a far simpler process which required acting in the moment. I would pour and smear acrylic paint which was frightening at first because I was not accustomed to painting so explosively. But I began to realize that there are no mistakes to be made with abstract works. Each “mistake” could turn into an entirely new addition to the piece.