As a child growing up in Sri Lanka, DJ Perera, a junior studio art major, remembers developing a passion for drawing as he experimented with different color and hues in his children’s coloring books.“I would use different color combination and experiment with different values,” Perera said. “ I was just picking up a crayon or several and coming up with something really colorful, and not just coloring books, but looking at covers of books and trying to replicate that tone or hue.
When Perera came to college at TCU, he noticed a difference in style between his work and that of his fellow classmates.
“My style is different only because I have grown up and been exposed to more cultural then my fellow classmates,” Perera said. “Back in the ancient days, art revolved around collecting leaves and the dyes of dirt and natural and using raw color.”
“We have a very colorful art history and I bring that into my paintings,” he added.
“ It is just more expressive more direct and more colorful.”
Perera noticed that his peers, mostly American, works consist of one subject or theme, where his is a collection of multiple themes – something he has adapted from Sri Lanka.
“It is more agriculture more of a storytelling narrative, that is the aspect of Sri Lanka I have taken,” Perera said. “I’ve taken that concept and modernized it using images more common to today.”
In addition to his use of images, Perera has also adapted the use of bold earth tones used him Sri Lankan artwork.
“My aim is to use color to make your eye travel all though and not able to focus in on one aspect,” Perera said.
In addition to utilizing paint as a distinct aspect, Perera’s work seems to focus on common elements, like death, that is represented in a very direct way, which is represented by a large white skull on the left side of his large two-canvas untitled work.
Perera said he does not sketch his ideas or deliberates what he will paint; instead he uses general themes and paint images to represent those themes such as death, passion or music.
His current piece, untitled, has been a work in progress for three days and will probably be finished with two or three more sessions.
Perera does not title his pieces because he believes it skews the viewers initial experience.
“The function of my paintings is for the color to make up the form and make up the paint, I do no want to restrict your interruption as a view to the title,” Perera said.
So how does an artist measure the success of a painting?
“For me, a successful painting is if the view cannot make out the composition, and if the viewer is directly engages in the painting by having to walk back and forth toward the painting,” Perera said. “For me, that is a message of success - if you get that type of interaction.”
For now, Perera says he will continue to be different and infusing his heritage and personal experiences into his developing style, but he might have to adapt his style to appeal to a wider audience.
“Somewhere along the line you’re going to have to comply with social norms and what’s happening and get into the world,” Perera said reluctantly. “That is something I’m not going to holy embrace, but in order to come to I guess it will be developing my style.”
“Different is better,” Perera stressed. "Different is unique. It is what sets you apart from the main stream.”
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