ARTRA Canvas, ARTRA’s virtual canvas that was launched on Friday, the 17th of July on www.artra.lk/artworks/canvas showcases a collection of contemporary art from across the island, steeped in riveting concepts stimulated and inspired by the unique cultural heritage, travel and culinary aspects of each province. ARTRA’s Canvas’ most particular characteristic is distinct in its capacity to showcase works of art by artists from each of the nine provinces expressed inventively through diverse mediums ranging from acrylic, pencil sketching, digital art to mixed-media.

Founder & Editor-in-Chief of ARTRA, Azara Jaleel expressed, “ARTRA Canvas and its forthcoming editions of exposeś are curated in a fashion that will help viewers experience Sri Lanka through artistic expression. It is a means through which artists share their thoughts, responses, and perspectives on their personal journeys under curated themes celebrated in the forms of visual metaphors, culinary dishes, travelogues whilst reflecting the culture and heritage of the places they come from. We are gearing ARTRA Canvas towards celebrating the intrinsic nature of our diverse provinces with indigenous features to bring together our nation’s multidimensional landscape. It is also a space that will reflect the value of artists in the larger context of their vital influence in shaping the growth of a nation in an authentic fashion whilst staying true to one’s identity and spirit.”

ARTRA’s Canvas launches with the thematic showcase of responses of artists across nine provinces to the outbreak of the global pandemic amounting to 100 works in total. Artist Mohamed Hathi from the Eastern province paints trauma and grief, a reflection of his innermost psyche whilst artist Shahdia Jamaldeen from the Western province captures a notion of broken beauty in the depiction of flowers against disease. The concept portrays the directives where the smell of roses is used to obscure the stench of illness. Artist Pulasthi Hadunge from the Central Province brings to the canvas a concept of hope and belief and the nuances of healing and prayer whilst artist Tharuk Kanishka from the Western province takes on a depiction of post-apocalyptic ideologies, an alternate reality that captures mental integration and sanity.

ARTRA Canvas creates the space and movement that provides society to witness the unfolding of talents across each province. Through the access of this digital platform, one can perceive the manifold skills of artists, the culture of a province, spectate the lush lands of each terrain, the rich cuisine brimming with the island’s heritage and travel across the domains to observe what each place has to offer, all these elements enhanced through the lens of art in its essence. Each artist, across varied and distinct backgrounds fills ARTRA’s Canvas walls as it begins the journey of celebrating all the provinces and every culture infused in the history of Sri Lanka from its culinary expertise to travel, lifestyle and design. ARTRA’s Canvas becomes a movement in its crux to its artists and their works in celebrating newer dimensions that is yet to be seen.

ARTRA’s Canvas launches its virtual showcase in association with ISSO, one of Sri Lanka’s inventive restaurants specializing in the nation’s most revered dish of prawns. Sri Lanka has garnered a reputation for its genuine hospitality, beautiful landscape, cultural heritage and the diverse palettes of rich and appetising recipes where prawns takes up an integral part of the cuisine and ISSO celebrates this element of delicacy with much style and novelty.

ARTRA is Sri Lanka’s art platform established in 2012 with the objective of promoting artistic expression. ARTRA promotes contemporary art in the forms of visual, performance, written, applied and culinary in pursuit of uplifting the art & creative fields of Sri Lanka whilst strengthening the growth of an art eco-system and industrial footprint. ARTRA Magazine, the very first of ARTRA’s medium to celebrate contemporary art, was established in 2012 whilst focusing on providing thematic and timely content to local and international readers. Annual Editions such as ARTRA’s Iconic Women, spearheading Sri Lanka’s art & creative industries, Best of Emerging Artists, Art & Living and Art & Technology have received much acclaim locally and internationally for its curation, content strength and identification of unique trends within opinion leaders and formers of the industry. ARTRA Magazine is committed to providing comprehensive insights on modern and contemporary art through the means exclusive interviews with established art personalities, art critiques, art calendars and art columns.