Painting Behind Bars

Only Five Hours More before the noose is tightened around my neck

Paintings Behind Bars

48 years ago - July 1 1971 ... 
Charles Dayananda was thrown in prison.

One of the things that the Healing of Memories Program in Sri Lanka did in March 2015 is to bring together a few people working with alternate ways of bringing healing.  Sinhala Folk Medicine and Buddhist Counselling by Ayurvedic Physician R M S G Rajaguru; Buddhist Philosophy and Methodology by Dr Sarath Chandrasekera of the Sri Lanka Buddhist Academy SIBA and Art Therapy by Charles Dayananda.  Fr Micheal Lapsley explained the Healing of Memories Workshop and a discussion on the complementary nature of alternate healing processes followed.

As luck would have it the plan to conduct a Healing of Memories (HOM) workshop for the soldiers at the Ranaviru Sevana fell through and Fr Lapsley had a couple of days to spare and the team was invited by Mr Charles Dayananda to the Giragama Teacher Training Institute for a discussion.  

Charles with Fr Micheal Lapsley SSM
at Giragama Teacher Training College

At the end of that program, over butter cake, plantains and plain tea we heard about the 30 paintings that Charles had drawn while he was in Jail for 6 years after the failed JVP insurrection in 1971.  We persuaded Mr Dayananda to show his paintings to us and the content of this blog is based on the conversations with him since he managed to evoke a keen interest in what happened 'those days' when - as a young 22 year old artist - he - along with many others who took part in the insurrection were in various jails throughout the country. His paintings depict stories of what he saw while he was incarcerated.  This blog will be written as related by Mr. Charles Dayananda and the opinions are his (unless specifically noted)

This series of 30 paintings drawn on paper (15x11 inches) using water colours were created in extremely severe conditions inside a high security prison by a prisoner. They have been hidden from the public eye for 42 years by the year 2015.  

What was 44 years ago...  a current political event is today an interesting fact of history and the time is right for these paintings and the stories and thinking behind them to come out into the open and be integrated into Sri Lankan Society.

Charles has begun drawing these in 1973 at the Bogambara Prison in Sri Lanka.  On the 1st of July 1971 he was taken into custody and being convicted after trial he was sentenced to 6 years rigorous imprisonment along with many others who participated in the insurrection. He was released in September 1977 when a new government came into power.

Charles was transferred to several prisons, namely, Welikada - Magazine- Anuradhapura and the Bogambara prison where most of his incarceration was spent. The significance of Bogambara was that it was not only the insurgents but murderers, rapists, thieves and organised robbers who all served their prison sentences together. This in itself was a very special experience. Charles Dayananda has written a book in Sinhala titled “Sipiri geyaka wasara hayak” (Six years in a Prison) outlining many of his experiences and stories around which the paintings have been drawn.

Sinhala Book published by Charles :
 "Six Years in a Prison"

Many Poets, Authors and Song writers have been imprisoned over the course of history and they have written poems, short stories, novels and even produced drama while in prison.  However, we have yet to hear about Artists who painted events around them while still serving a prison sentence. Vincent Van Gogh painted while in a mental asylum which was like a prison. He was not undergoing punishment but medical treatment. That is the reason why Charles Dayananda’s pictures have a great value not so much as ‘Works of Art’ but in terms of their humanistic and historical significance. It is not possible to replicate a collection of this nature by this artist or by any other ever again. One has to experience it – and yes people will continue to experience life in prison but it will not be exactly the same as back in 1971-1977.  It will certainly be very different. If these pictures were protected for another 100 years its value will be even greater asserts the Artist Charles Dayananda.

These were created amidst unbelievable challenges within the prison. Drawing papers and a couple of tubes of water colours were smuggled into the prison  through various illegal methods in order to draw these pictures. The fur cut off the tails of the cats that were around in the prison premises served as brushes of differing sizes when tied together on to a stick.  They had to be drawn in secret and hidden in various hiding places to protect them over the years and then when his prison term ended – they had to be secretly smuggled out of the prison as well. In 1980 these pictures were displayed once at the ‘Kala Bhavana’ in Colombo but since then they have not been seen by anyone to this day. These paintings need to be viewed with this context in mind. 

Look out for our next blog posts for stories of the paintings and more details about the public exhibition of these paintings which have been hidden for so long.