Rebekah Pieris and her worlds made of fragments

 

'The Commons Cofffeehouse' down Flower Road is sometimes too busy a place to notice certain things. Quite apart from the comings and goings of regular and random clientele, there always seems to be something else happening. Decorations are put up for various festive holidays, then taken down. The furniture is rearranged. Indeed, there’s the occasional refurbishment as well. Posters are put up to announce a play or musical. They are removed only to be replaced by posters announcing some other event.  

I didn’t really notice the fact that a team of young people were setting up an exhibition of paintings. Maybe my mind was on other things; others may have been more curious. I might have not known, at least not for a while, unless a friend, Jehan Pieris, told me about it.  

So I took a look. They had just started their work. One or two had already been placed on a wall. The young men were trying to figure out where the next one ought to be placed. There were some paintings, all framed, lying on one of the tables and some on a couch. And a young girl with some painting instrument, perhaps a pen or maybe a marker, diligently ‘working’ on one of the ‘works.’

Strange. I had thought that the work of the artist is done by the time a painting is ready to be exhibited. I was intrigued and told Jehan that I would like to interview her.  I was introduced to her, Rebekah, Jehan’s daughter. I told her I’d be around and asked her to tell me when she was ready. When she was, I wasn’t, but I promised to come look for her once I was done.

Rebekah Pieris had been doodling since she was little. Apparently her father also liked to draw. There was ‘canvas’ wherever she went. Like most children she too used the walls and her parents indulged. She could literally spend hours drawing short lines, rendering with black on white, the universe of her imagination or the world as she saw it. ‘It was therapeutic for me. I just kept going on and on for hours.’ She didn’t plan or think too much, apparently. ‘The hand does its thing,’ she simply said.

‘I always had a vivid imagination. For me, it’s just laying out feelings on canvas, my experiences, what I’ve seen and extracted, but not necessarily intentionally; it just comes out in my art. She had taken some formal lessons at Cora Abraham’s art school and had offered Art for her ALs before moving to an Art School in Norway, Seljord. Thereafter she’s been reading for an art degree, ‘for a long time,’ she said, adding, ‘with multiple breaks!’ 

When she was younger she had been interested in drawing portraits. ‘That was the time I was looking at Uncle Harry’s work.’ ‘Uncle Harry’ is actually her granduncle, one of the founders of the renowned Colombo ’43 Group and considered as the finest Asian portraitists of the 20th century working in a European style.  

‘While practicing portraits, I would get bored easily. I realised that I don’t really enjoy realism. I like a more fragmented view, leaving interpretation to the viewer, instead of giving a flat out this-is-what-it-is. I wanted to make it different, mixing abstract with pop art, maintaining that mess, creating organised chaos.’

The process was and is essentially experimental. Rebekah was to make it her own, but quickly interjected, ‘you might not recognise it and indeed it certainly can’t be what I see or paint, but that’s alright.’

Where does the inspiration come from, i.e. apart from her vivid imagination and determination to fragment or, as the case may be, extract from the ‘intact’ that which constitute it, the innumerable fragments? According to Rebekah, she is inspired by Frida Kahlo and Salvador Dali, but offers, ‘my approach would align more with cubists and fragmented approaches.’

She also mentioned Pala Pothupitiya. ‘He advises me a lot. He always tells a story. His work is political commentary. Mine is not. I am about expressions and emotions; my own little doodles in an extract of time.’

I don’t understand art and know nothing of artists and styles, so she explained, as though to a complete novice: ‘Imagine a picture of someone on a glass; now imagine it being shattered. Things get shifted.’

Yes, everything is a bit askew. We are all ‘askew,’ it occurred to me. Our eyes and even minds are trained to see neat composites. We are conditioned to caress surfaces. We don’t often read the back stories and are completely ignorant of the ‘deep down.’ Maybe that’s how we manage to suffer the agonies of life and indeed our very existence as human beings and collectives. We get disturbed by things that are ajar or appear to be so. Well, what if that’s how things are?

Such thoughts crossed my mind. Rebekah reminded me, ‘the world and life have multiple dimensions; even 3D art would be limiting.’

From art and painting, she moved to life and philosophy, which of course are not different planets but co-exist and are even entwined.

‘I don’t like to be told what to do or what to think. So the question comes to me, “why not break all the rules?”

She claims that her art changes each season. That’s probably because her interests are varied. ‘I read all kinds of books, all the time. I just want to keep my mind busy. Science has always interested me.  I think the Cubists were probably inspired by science. Einstein’s relativism, for example.  

Rebekah says she never plans. Well, she didn’t when she was a kid doodling on walls either. So that has remained all these years. But she explained why: ‘art becomes raw and honest when it’s not planned.’

Speaking of the exhibition, Rebekah said it was a speed exercise. ‘I gave myself a couple of hours for each piece. There’s no time to think and I don’t want to think either. I just let it happen. It’s fun for me. There’s something happening in the mind and it evolves. The end product however lives for a long time. I don’t hold on to my work once I am done. It’s just a moment in time, anyway. Things change, I change, everything is constantly evolving. I am not sentimental.’ She attributes this thinking in part to Pala, who encouraged her to ‘walk away.’

‘Pala told me to walk away from the pieces so I wouldn’t overdo them. His intent hadn’t much to do with sentimentality I guess.’

There are others who have inspired her. She mentioned Francis Bacon and Edvard Munch. I knew of the latter and his ‘The Scream’ but never knew that Bacon painted. Rebekah showed me some of the portraits by the former. She was quite excited to show me one of his self-portraits where the artist portrays himself in semi-mangled ways. This was when I got a sense of what she had told me about fragments and fragmenting.

Rebekah held her first solo exhibition at the Lionel Wendt. It was called ‘Ephesus.’ That was a time she had been trying to understand the concept of God: ‘it had nothing to do with the exhibition, but I thought I would give it that name; it was a transitional time in my life.’

She lives and works in the UK. Apparently she had spent 10 years as a professional bartender, having attended the European Bartender School. Now she’s a supervisor who leads a team in sales related to high-end supplements and healthcare. 

‘I sell, but I don’t market myself or my art!’ They do sell, though but the marketing is mostly through word of mouth. She said that even the one instagram post related to her exhibition was done just three days before the event.

She clearly has a preference for acrylics and markers: ‘it’s mostly acrylic and if it’s on paper I use ink.’ The drawings that adorn the walls of ‘The Commons’ are all black-and-white affairs.

‘Black is what I always wore. Black to me is a relaxing colour. I have of course experimented with colour a little bit but my strength is black.’

Speaking of the exhibition, she said ‘his particular collection has an undersea vibe. I am leaning towards the submerged. But then again, I don’t want to name it. Maybe I will explore shipwrecks soon. My dad and I are both divers!”

She revealed that she maintains what she calls ‘a doodle diary.’ It’s her mind in a book. Her paintings are, by the same token, diary-entries.

The interview was done. She went back to her work and I to mine. A couple of hours later, as I was walking out, I saw Rebekah once again dabbing on one of the paintings. This time it was dots. She spoke while ‘dotting.’

‘So you keep working on these?’

‘Yes, until I am done. That’s when I know I can walk away.’

Her work remains. They capture the viewer who could theoretically caress or dive into the canvas  and make what he or she will of dots, lines and their peculiar configurations. Until they too can walk away, Rebekah might say.