About Dilrukshi Mendis – Contemporary Narrative Artist

My Journey and Ethos

 

Ayubowan

 

This traditional Sinhalese greeting means, “May you have the gift of long life.”

 

My life has unfolded between banking, finance and art. As a child, I was always drawing, painting or reading; these were the places where I could lose myself completely. I was also drawn to mathematics, which led me into accounting and then into a long corporate career across two continents as a Chartered Accountant, CPA and banker.

 

Yet art was never absent. I had always drawn and created. Over time, I came to understand that the creative and intuitive self I had set aside was not separate from the person who had built that career. It had been there all along.

 

At the heart of my practice are two questions: what is a meaningful life, and how do I live one?

 

My larger allegorical paintings seek to portray the values that I believe underpin a meaningful life. My smaller works explore how those values appear in everyday life: in ordinary moments, relationships, gestures and choices.

 

I offer these artworks as my personal responses to these questions. My work rewards quiet looking and I hope they offer a space for connection, resonance or reflection with the viewer.