Master of Fine Arts Degree Show 2025 concluded successfully

By Anusara Weerasinghe

Artists are like sharks—ancient, resilient, and endlessly fascinating. Long before dinosaurs, they existed in spirit, and despite the likes of Plato wishing to exile them and Hitler seeking to destroy them, they persist—cursed with creativity, making life far more interesting. From Lascaux’s cave walls to Michelangelo’s divine brain, Van Gogh’s rustic sunflowers, Duchamp’s rebellious urinal, and Dali’s melting clocks, artists have always dared to dream differently. 

Today, their legacy continues through the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Kelaniya, where another batch of bold visionaries from the Master of Fine Arts programme successfully concluded ‘Master of Arts Degree Show, 2025.’ 

Based on a conversation with Ms. Lanka de Silva, Head of the Department of Fine Arts, University of Kelaniya this article explores the significance of the exhibition and the degree programme as well.

A programme for everyone

What makes this two-year degree programme unique is the fact that an artist from any discipline could become a part of it and refine his/her skills in visual artistry. The only rule is that you should have an inborn skill for a branch of fine arts such as painting, sculpting etc. This time we have had students with degrees in Medicine, Management, Architecture and in Fashion Designing. This may help you to get a clear understanding of the diversity of academic disciplines in which our students are engaged in. 

“Secondly, it becomes special because we offer a mentor for each student of the degree programme.  We have a panel of well-known contemporary artists in Sri Lanka with a significant academic background. On the first year itself, each mentor conducts a presentation on who they are, how they have established themselves as artists in Sri Lanka, how they trade their artworks in the international arena while making their mark. After six weeks of observation, we offer the students a chance to choose their mentors to guide them in their upcoming visual art project,” shared de Silva.

Learn the rules to break the rules 

Picasso said, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist”. And it is one principle that the Department of Fine Arts follows.

“A student may enrol in our degree programme having absolutely no idea of this critical and aesthetic history of art. So, we begin with the art history of the ancient civilisations,” de Silva shared. “We voyage from the prehistoric cave paintings to the Greco-Roman world, then we explore the European artistic movements from the pre-modern era to the modern and postmodern times. Moreover, we give them a fine knowledge on how the aesthetic trends, critical theory and philosophical concepts of both East and West have shaped the world’s perception of visual arts.”

“Parallel to the critical theories, the mentors guide the students throughout the two years to practically refine their craft till they work with their final project which we witnessed at the JDA Perera Gallery. Therefore, I hope we have taught them both the rules of art and the art of breaking them to become artists.”

‘The Master of Fine Arts Exhibition 2025’ 

This time we introduce the artworks of thirty-one aspiring artists through ‘The Master of Fine Arts Exhibition’. The themes of their artworks are personal as much as they are political. Here you may find an artist transforming the traumatic memory of his beloved mother’s death into an extraordinary artwork made of more than two thousand saline bottles. 

“And that isn’t the end of the marvels up our sleeves for the exhibition this year. We also have a very special event where a skilful sculptor uses the vast sky above as his head as his canvas,” added Lanka de Silva.

The journey of the Fine Arts Department over the years

“JDA Perera Gallery is like the womb of Sri Lankan visual artistry. I remember the first time I had the chance of taking the final year artworks of 32 students out of the university premises and exhibit them at the JDA Perera Gallery.  Then we continued the exhibition in 2019 before the Covid pandemic. Over all these years, we have had the fortune of introducing many talented visual artists who can create a notable impact on the 

Sri Lankan visual art industry,” she shared. “This creative endeavour is never easy and would never have been successful if not for the collective effort of our mentors, lecturers and students.”

Ceylon Today English Newspaper, 30th of June 2025, page no. C9.

https://ceylontoday.lk/2025/06/30/master-of-arts-degree-show-2025-concluded-successfully/