Sri Lankan painter Dillai praised by IOC President

The President of the National Olympic of Sri Lanka Mr. Suresh Subramaniam and its General Secretary Mr. Maxwell de Silva met the International Olympic Committee Chairman Dr. Thomas Bach during the 24th ANOC General Assembly in Doha, Qatar
on Thursday.

There the Lankan duo handed over a painting done by Sri Lankan artist Ms. Dillai Joseph depicting the environment sustainability done under the theme “Give the Reef Another Chance”. NOC Sri Lanka initiated this environmental sustainability Programme in Polhena on June 25, 2019.

In that initiative, Joseph was also part of the programme and took a very serious responsibility of creating its information centre. Joseph designed all the visual materials and contents for the centre to educate the public on the importance of the coral reefs. Artist Dillai Joseph says “I, as an artist, have tried to capture the essence of this endeavour in my painting. It is no longer sufficient to ‘conserve’ coral reefs; rather it is to go one step further, where proactive human intervention is needed to restore the reefs. The painting depicts a human hand
giving out colour blobs to bring back life to somewhat dead corals (Some parts of the coral is white).

The stance of the human hand is also to have resemblance of the famous frescoes in the Sistine Chapel ‘The creation’ and drawing a parallel, where we as humans have the ability to give life back to coral reefs not merely to stop at conservation. I have tried to depict the bright colour scheme underwater and texturized the corals to give a better effect.

‘Humans have the power to give life back.’

I wish to gift this painting which is Acrylic on canvas (60cmx80cm) to the International Olympic Committee as a token to celebrate Olympic values and the remembrance of this work done in Sri Lanka with the NOC team to encourage how we can work together to bring back what was lost and it is not too late to keep trying. It is a very dear painting to me and I wanted to part with the original as I believe this can inspire many beyond borders. We need to do this for the generations to come so that they too will enjoy the planet and value it.