PRAKRITI

Nuwan Nalaka returns to his floral and vegetal motifs in Prakriti, a series of brilliant and scintillating paintings that deliberate on feminine energy, sexuality and the erotic. Nuwan Nalaka’s engagement with Hindu and Buddhist ideas continues in this series. The flower vases are but a sanitized representation of a female figure in birthing position, Lajja Gauri — an ancient concept with tantric associations that connote fertility and sexuality.

They are also an allusion to the Poorna Ghata, the pot of plenty, which reaffirm the ideas of abundance and prosperity. In his mediation, the artist re-appropriates and reimagines these ancient iconographies, leading essentially to the same interpretation.