Untitled Document

Mirror Magazine

Teen impressions
By Ishani Ranasinghe
"Art has taught us to appreciate things and see them in a different perspective," say the four teenagers who are preparing for their exhibition, Diverse Imagination on October 9 and 10 at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery.

They have never done an exhibition together before, but their love for art has brought Insiyah Amirdeen, Nadine McLeod, Anjuli Goonaratna and Anishka Goonaratna, all students of Lathifa Ismail together for this exhibition.

Painting since the age of five, Insiyah Amirdeen (17), is a student of Wycherly International School. She first started painting because her mother wanted her to. "As time went by, I slowly dropped the other classes like elocution but stuck to painting," she says. This will be Insiyah's third exhibition.

"I was always drawing on things I could get my hands on, the walls, the floor, anything and everything. I've being painting since I was six," says Anjuli (17), a student at Bishop's College. This will be Anjuli's third exhibition as well.

"I always painted, but I started classes later than the rest of them," says Anishka (19), a past pupil of Holy Family Convent. She says that this will be her first exhibition and she is very excited about it.

Seventeen-year-old Nadine has been painting since she was six. A student at Methodist College, she says that this will be her fourth exhibition.

All of them see painting as a good pastime and one that relaxes them immensely. Their paintings depict what they find beautiful in the day-to-day world. Simple things that go unnoticed.

"The exhibition was in a way a motivation for us to paint," says Anjuli. Putting it together has been a lot of fun for them as well as a learning experience. "Our parents have always being our strength, and the support we receive from them is tremendous," adds Insiyah, who says that if not for their parents, maybe their talents would never have been discovered.

The exposure they get from this exhibition would help them, they feel. " Besides, we are kind of running out of space to hang our paintings so something has to be done with them," they jokingly add as they plan on selling most of the paintings to cover the costs.

All of them are now at a point in their lives where they have to concentrate on their higher studies. They doubt this will leave them much time to paint, so this exhibition in a way is the closing of one chapter of their lives.

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