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Lot Essay
Like his contemporary and friend Claessen, Peries spent most of his career in London, first studying at the Anglo-French Institute at St. Johns Wood School of Art from 1946 until 1949 before he returned to London to live in Southend-on-Sea in 1953. However, "In spite of having spent a major part of his life as a painter abroad, there is nothing in his work which is outside the Ceylonese experience, nothing which displays a distance in subject, style or attitude from Ceylonese life or Ceylonese modes of feelingit is the work of a singular and original creative mind nurtured throughout two decades abroad by the lasting experience of a distant homeland." (S. Bandaranayake quoted in, N. Weereratne, 43Group: A Chronicle of Fifty Years of Art in Sri Lanka, Melbourne, 1993, p. 117)
In this painting form 1966 Peries adopts a style he developed using the palette knife to create thick, textured impastos. He releases the energy and movement that hid latent beneath the surface of his more contemplative works. "This juxtaposition of movement and stasis - and in his best pictures, a dynamic equilibrium between the two - remains the central experience of Peries's work, investing each picture with a profound intensity of feeling." (S, Bandaranayake & M. Fonseka ed., Ivan Peries Paintings 1938-88, Melbourne, 1996, p.9).
This work was painted just a few years before his death in 1988, and is part of a series of figures often produced by washing away the acrylic off the paper to leave behind the saturated areas of pigment. His figures are serene, composed and isolated, in a state of perpetual reflection showing the influence of the art of fifteenth century monastic artist Fra Angelico whose work we had great affection for. Peries "was totally absorbed in his catholic traditions and took great pleasure in such institutions as the monastic life." (N. Weereratne, 43Group: A Chronicle of Fifty Years of Art in Sri Lanka, Melbourne, 1993, p.120) Peries's figures throughout his oeuvre imbue a spiritual nostalgic melancholy to his paintings reflecting an artist geographically disconnected but spiritually intertwined with his homeland of Sri Lanka.
In this painting form 1966 Peries adopts a style he developed using the palette knife to create thick, textured impastos. He releases the energy and movement that hid latent beneath the surface of his more contemplative works. "This juxtaposition of movement and stasis - and in his best pictures, a dynamic equilibrium between the two - remains the central experience of Peries's work, investing each picture with a profound intensity of feeling." (S, Bandaranayake & M. Fonseka ed., Ivan Peries Paintings 1938-88, Melbourne, 1996, p.9).
This work was painted just a few years before his death in 1988, and is part of a series of figures often produced by washing away the acrylic off the paper to leave behind the saturated areas of pigment. His figures are serene, composed and isolated, in a state of perpetual reflection showing the influence of the art of fifteenth century monastic artist Fra Angelico whose work we had great affection for. Peries "was totally absorbed in his catholic traditions and took great pleasure in such institutions as the monastic life." (N. Weereratne, 43Group: A Chronicle of Fifty Years of Art in Sri Lanka, Melbourne, 1993, p.120) Peries's figures throughout his oeuvre imbue a spiritual nostalgic melancholy to his paintings reflecting an artist geographically disconnected but spiritually intertwined with his homeland of Sri Lanka.