Artist Statement
My art comes from a place of meditation and inner search. It's my path to freedom. When people respond to my art, I believe they respond to a visceral part of themselves longing to be free. My wish is to empower them to the possibilities.
Art sets me free. I fiercely guard my art to be authentic with no compromises. It is a place where I boldly express myself, where real Kushlani comes through. It unravels me, clarifies me, just the way meditation does. Coming from a Buddhist background, Nirvana is the blessed state to be. My hunch is, it is acutely being in the present moment with awareness. Like meditation, Art takes me closest to this state.
A memory
In kindergarten I was given a chance to paint. I remember approaching a white sheet of paper on an easel. There was blue, red, green and yellow powdered paint mixed with water on a tray. There was a chunky brush for me to use. I felt exhilarated. I could pick any color I wanted and paint any shape I wanted. I still can feel the freedom of picking exactly what I wanted. I remember what I painted was the previous little artist's sprig of leaves but it was my choice.
My process is still the same. I approach my white canvas and feel for the colors and paint. It is always a surprise for me what comes out. I cannot paint on demand and I cannot do commissions because it gets in the way of my freedom.
My Vision
My vision is my art to be displayed in MOMA and Legion of honor and be available to a worldwide audience. I envision my business to be a multibillion dollar one and bust the myth of the starving artist. I envision healing the world one dream at a time.
Coming from a Physics and Software background, my heart seems to still gravitate towards Art, even though, it’s not the most lucrative business. Starving artist is cliché. My vision is to bust it.
I have seen so much suffering in the world, poverty, wars, and it affects me to the core. I am beginning to accept how much money affects the lifestyles and mental wellbeing of people. As children we always donated to the beggars who came to the house. One day an old man came home with a coconut shell in his hand, in it was some gravy. He very politely asked me for some bread to eat with it. We did not have bread that day. I couldn’t offer it to him. This incident haunts me to this day. How come there is so much hunger, suffering when there is so much abundance. It’s a small world but different lifestyles are worlds apart.
My plan is to help alleviate suffering from the world as much as possible. Give dignity to people, no matter what cast, creed, social status they are from. Money does talk, I believe we have to take it upon ourselves to make it talk kindly, gently and generously.
My Mission
To be truly happy, one has to be happy in their own skin. Be free to feel what they feel, do what they enjoy. To be untethered by the social norms. I truly believe if all of us find our passion, our dream, and follow it to the end the world will be a beautiful, blissful place. Here’s to a farmer being a farmer, a doctor being a doctor… just because it is their passion, their dream.
Cheers
Kushlani Jayasinha Bio
Kushlani was born and raised in Sri Lanka and has been painting almost all her life. She obtained her PhD in Physics from The University of Oklahoma, where she continued as a postdoctoral fellow. She worked as a software engineer in Silicon Valley. Throughout it all and raising her children she found time take art courses and workshops, and is now a fulltime artist. She has won awards for her paintings and her jewelry, and had been represented in many galleries.
A few words from - Agora Gallery, NY
The moving, enthralling abstracts of Kushlani Jayasinha extract the energy of the artist’s hand and lay it bare on the canvas. Jayasinha’s oil paint covers the canvas with color and creativity, the organization at once sharply defined and open to interpretation. The works keep to earth tones and an ambiguous field of depth, allowing the feeling and composition to be wholly driven by the shape of the artist’s mark, which itself is influenced by meditation that casts its peaceful spell on the viewer through the medium of the paint.
Jayasinha’s work is deeply ingrained in her journeyman’s history. Born in Sri Lanka and a one-time physicist, she now devotes herself full-time to art in her adopted home of California. Her organic style of painting arose partly from this transition; as she describes it, “life has more meaning experienced than explained. Life is best when just being. Art takes us to this place.” Jayasinha’s work invites the viewer to enter its profoundly honest space where light, pigment, and shadow exist on a visceral level: the physical and the spiritual worlds made visible.
Artist's Resume:
Galleries (present and past)
Invitational Demonstrations
Awards
American Art Awards 2009 2nd Place Self Portraits category for oil painting “The Wish”
AVArtFest 2009 3rd place 3D category for “Three leaf Ring”
Finalist LGAA Open Juried Show 2009, for encaustic painting “Woods Series #5”
Honorable mention EVC Student Show 2008 for oil painting “The Wish”
AVArtFest 2007 finalist Necklace “Bird of Paradise”
Friends of AVA award 2005 for “Agapanthus and Lantanas” Oil Pastel, AVArt Festival, Santa Clara, CA
Finalist AVArtFest 2002 for “Uween’s first lesson” Oil on Canvas
Shows and Events:
Second annual Artists Showcase, Pacific Art League, Palo Alto, CA (2019/2020)
The First Annual Artists Showcase, Pacific Art League, Palo Alto, CA (2018/2019)
Silicon Valley Open Studios at Alameda Art Works, San Jose, CA (2015-2018)
Alameda ArtWorks Fall Open Studios, San Jose, CA (2012-2018)
"Dreaming Earth", Gallery House, Palo Alto, CA (2015)
“States of Being” Solo show, Kaleid Gallery, San Jose, CA
"Degrees of Abstraction", Agora Gallery, New York, NY (2012)
Silicon Valley Open Studios at Alameda Art Works, San Jose, CA (2012)
Solo Gallery Group Show, Los Gatos, California, (2007)
AVA Art Festival 2007, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, California (2007)
Cupertino Golden Jubilee Show 2005, Cupertino, California (2005)
“Art by my mother”, Whitney Young Cultural Center, San Francisco, California (2003)
Juried Show “Large works” Pacific Art league, Palo Alto, California (2003)
Silicon Valley Open Studios, California (2002)
AVA Art Festival 2002, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, California (2002)
Studio
The Alameda ArtWorks, Studio #2, 1068 The Alameda, San Jose, CA 95126
Education
Color Workshops with artist Anna Lee Steed (2008)
San Jose Art Academy, Santa Clara, California with artist Sa Ra Lee
Fire House Art Center, Norman, Oklahoma with artist Carol Armstrong
Other
