Nalini Jayasuriya

“Sri Lankan-born artist Nalini Marcia Jayasuriya is an Asian Christian nurtured by a Buddhist culture, a woman receptive to the world’s many modes of spiritual inquiry. The result is not confusion or ambivalence but confidence and generosity, a distinctive sensibility at work in her art, illuminating the power of vocation and calling.” 

(R. Waddle, From the Editor: The Galaxy Within Us -https://reflections.yale.edu/article/seize-day-vocation-calling-work/editor-galaxy-within-us)

Throughout her life Nalini Jayasuriya was dedicated to learning and academia which, in turn, informed her creative endeavours. She displayed talent for music and literature from a young age, but it was when she moved to the UK to be an English as a second language teacher, that she discovered her artistic voice. While in London she began to frequent evening art classes where she enjoyed experimenting with stained glass techniques and other mediums such an enamel on metal. She became particularly interested in religious art and began to explore ideas of culture, ethnicity and faith. The current painting is evocative of the fluid, vibrant, colourful, swirling compositions she created, usually featuring a scene or a story related to one of the main religious faiths. She brilliantly fused the spirituality of both the East and West to create her hopeful and celebratory works, meant to impart peace.

Jayasuriya went on to teach art history and music history, lecturing about sacred art at many institutions, such as the Yale Divinity School, New Haven, USA and Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan. Her career flourished and as the beneficiary of countless awards and scholarships she traveled around the world. 

Jayasuriya was awarded one of the highest honors for the Arts by the President of Sri Lanka. One of the few completely open and unapologetic artists that focused on religion, her work was included in an exhibition titled The Christian Story: Five Asian Artists Today at the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA), New York City in 2007.