Marking our third artist-in-residence collaboration we sat down with Melbourne Artist, Dinusha Joseph to discuss her latest body of work titled ‘Family Album’. Inspired by travels back to her homeland in Sri Lanka. We discussed the importance of remembering our family history, the passing down of stories through generations and the serendipitous creative alignment of her paintings and the latest Megan Park collection ‘Paradiso’.
Can you tell us about your art practice?
I've been painting consistently for about 12 years, so I actually came to it relatively later on.
I'd always wanted to paint and I'd always painted a little bit, but as of about 12 years ago I've painted pretty much consistently. In more recent years I’ve worked in my Fitzroy studio nearby the Megan Park boutique and it was through a chance encounter in-store with Megan that this exhibition came to be.
This collection is a bit of a departure from my normal practice. Traditionally, I've used a lot of organic forms, so I've painted a lot from nature and I work in the abstract. I tend to draw an element from the world around me and then I take that shape or that colour and I combine it with other things in my own visual memory.
I try and get the feeling of a place within it and not to go back to the image while I'm painting. I try to launch from the image, and then work within the painting. I know a lot of artists work this way, which is where you're trying to be guided by the painting itself, or, as I've said before, trying not to impose your will too deliberately on a painting I paint in layers, tending to build one colour up on top of another colour and the colour below it is sort of generating an energy that changes the one above it. I don't necessarily have a predetermined vision of what will sit on the top. I'm kind of working off the previous mark or the previous colour and trying something next to it to see if it works. Sometimes that works immediately, and sometimes it doesn't. So it's kind of the build up of paint that triggers the next mark.
It's like a series of consequential decisions that are flowing from what's already happening in the work. Which is why I try not to be too bound by the image, because if you're too tied into what was in the original image. You're going to impose that structure or that colour on the painting.
Where do you gain your inspiration?
Whenever I see something that appeals to me visually I try to take a photograph of it. So if I see someone wearing a piece of clothing or fabric that I like, I'll take an image of that. Or if I see a carpet or a rug or any sort of design or building or something in nature that appeals to me, I will just take a picture of it, and I think it all just goes into my visual memory. And over time, it just filters and then re-emerges.
Can you walk us through your process when painting?
It’s a process of breaking my own comfort zones, as in, when I know that a certain combination of colours works or has worked for me in the past. I try not to always fall back on that, because I think the repetition of it can lead to a boredom that then reflects in the work. So I try to use my toolbox of what does bring harmony or what does bring a nice contrast, but also to deliberately do something that doesn't always fall within those parameters.
How did the concept of ‘Family Album’ come to be?
I had another friend who was also going through family photos at the time for a different purpose and I started flicking through mine. For some reason, I painted a couple of paintings, just ad hoc based on some of those imagery. They're not in this show, but I did one that was based on the colours in my Grandmother's wedding sari, which had the magentas and the golds. Then I started looking at the houses and taking elements out of the houses in terms of features, architectural features. So I approached it by looking to either a form or a colour within an object or a place that drew me in, and I sometimes just condensed it to that particular form that I liked, or that particular image within an image.
It was sort of the idea of an image leading to a memory or a sense of the past that I would partly have come from my memory, and partly would have been a collective memory. I left Sri Lanka when I was so young, so some of these places were more anecdotal for me from other members of my family as much as myself.
Can you tell us more about your relationship and history with Sri Lanka?
For me, it's of family and friends. It’s my immediate family. My parents had an extended network of friends in Melbourne who were from Sri Lanka. It was quite a small community in the 70s, and they were all considered to be our aunts and uncles, you know, not by blood, but just that's how the culture is.
Visual memory is central to your practice. What are the most vivid visual memories in your life?
I have strong memories of my grandma Rasa Poomani, her nickname was Girlie. She had a really nice way of putting things together, in terms of either her cooking, how she would combine things. In her garden, she was always really beautiful with her plants, her orchids, her African violets, herbs and she had a beautiful way of dressing. She had some lovely old silk saris, which were quite bold in their colours. She used to wear the block colours - the burgundies, the greens with lovely borders. She had a beautiful collection of scarves. I can vividly remember some of the prints and some of the colors from a long way back. I remember one that was purple, magenta and sort of gray, blue, grey, green.
So I remember those scarves, and I really remember her flowers. I remember her feeding the birds and her general manner, which was very calm. Her aesthetic was very quiet but strong and also quite held back. She just had a really strong sense of her own style.
What significance does family have in your life and what have you learnt through creating this collection?
It can be a source of strength, because there's that continuity, but it also can give you an understanding of some of the difficulties that maybe have been passed down as well. Cuts both ways.
It was interesting to learn about these people a bit more. I also was very drawn to the idea of my children going to some of these places. I really like the fact that in Nuwara Eliya, we were able to stay at a place called The Hill Club, which is somewhere where my Dad used to stay when he was younger and not much had changed. It was sort of like a throwback in time. So to have that continuity was really lovely.
There are many parallels between your work and Megan's, from her inspiration in textile traditions to your connection to family traditions, along with your shared love of color, values, and cultural ties. It feels as though this collection is a serendipitous collaboration from afar, tapping into a collective idea.
Can you tell us about your relationship with Megan Park and how your shared ties to Sri Lanka and India, storytelling, and tradition influence your personal style?
I met Megan through our mutual friend Lisa Gorman. I’ve also been a long-standing customer of the brand, always admiring the consistency of Megan’s creative vision and her own aesthetic.
There’s an artisanal element to her work, as well as the travel element and there’s the idea of the cultural journey. The idea of fabric being able to, in a sense, tell a story. I think fabric holds a history and has a bit of a soul to it.
The pieces I treasure are items of jewelry that came from both my grandmothers. I love to combine them with more modern pieces, integrating them into my own style. I've got things that I wear if I've got a significant occasion. I often wear a ring, which is a Star Sapphire that my grandma gave me, so that has a little star. If you turn it into the light, you can see the star within the stone. And that reminds me of her, and I wear that on any sort of big life event.
You can view Dinusha Joseph’s exhibition ‘Family Album’ at our Fitzroy Boutique until January 31 2025.