Segar (artist)

D. Raja Segar (born December 4, 1951) known as Segar, is a Sri Lankan artist and sculptor. He primarily does figure painting, with an interest in religious figures, such as Buddha and Ganesha, and everyday South Asian life. He describes his style as "refractive".
Segar was born to poor parents in the suburb of Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. He used to walk to school which was 5 km away from home to save bus fare so that he could eat something during the interval. After schooling at St Michael's College, Polwatte, Colombo-3 at the age of 19, he started working in a soft drinks manufacturing company in the field of accountancy.
While studying for his accountancy examinations he spent most of his time in the reference sections of the British Council library in Colombo. There he was able to browse through a collection of books and periodicals on art and artists. In his news paper interviews he always states; British Council was my university of fine art.
Monotonous work in the accountancy department started to bore him. Segar started to design his own greeting cards purely based on the day to day lifestyle of Sri Lankans. His cards became an instant hit as most of the greeting cards in Sri Lanka were copied from the paintings of western countries. The art lovers who saw his cards wanted him to make large paintings. Hence, comfortably he became a painter.
To give his art a serious impact Segar started experimenting the refractive effect of light in his abstract and figurative cubism. Tangent in geometry played a part in his drawings. His overlapping figures in his paintings was influenced by the Venn diagrams in Statistics. He loves to work in watercolor, oil and mixed media. In sculpture he works in steel. He has had one man exhibitions in Australia, England, India and Sri Lanka in addition to group exhibitions. Though his paintings sometimes depict gods and religion, he remains an atheist. His art has appeared in newspapers, documentaries and periodicals including Reader's Digest.
In 1988 he attempted suicide as a result of failed love affair but changed the idea as he thought of more than 20 of his unsigned paintings.
In 1996, Segar had his 19th solo exhibition in Colombo and donated the sales proceed of more than US$5000 to the Neurosurgery Trust Fund of the National Hospital of Sri Lanka, in the year which his wife of 29 years, Vejeyashanthinie, died of brain stem cancer.
The Housing Scheme 1977 and The Buddha 1987 are the two famous paintings in his career.
In 2002, he represented Sri Lanka at the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation artist meet up in Delhi.
Segar participated in the Abu Dhabi Cultural Summit in April 2017.
Segar was born to Hindu parents in Colombo Sri Lanka. His parents became Christians of catholic denomination after 3 years of their marriage, for the simple reason of getting Christian Schools for their Children. This was rather a common practice in Sri Lanka. Segar had to go to Sunday school in Anthony's Church Kollupitiya, in addition to going to church every Sundays. Until he was 13 he never missed a Sunday mass as he was told by the church that he would go to hell if he stop going to church and heaven is only possible only if he believes Jesus Christ as his only god. Segar noticed that hardly anyone read the Bible in his environment, may be reading the Bible was restricted among Catholics. Curious Segar started to read the Bible secretly. He read it again and he stopped going to Church ever since. When the congregation asked him he answered; It takes more than 8 minutes for the sun light to reach earth. Our next sun (star) is more than 4 light years away. Pl show me where the heaven is. Further, I am not interested in going to place where you can not communicate with your loved ones. However Segar was fascinated by the stories in both the religions Hinduism and Christianity. Religions became great art objects for his paintings. Segar's paintings on Gods were greatly admired and several of his paintings on Hindu god Ganesha adorned the shrine rooms of posh Hindus in several countries.
He lives in a house architectured by Minnette De Silva. This house conceived from Segar's imagination when he was 12 years old.
Major International Exhibitions and Events
One man exhibitions in Sri Lanka
His early works dominated by triangles squares and cubes and avoided curves much as possible refer the Big Ben painting on Bonjour French magazine. Traveling of light in different density and its refraction influenced him a lot. He did not hesitate to apply this in many of large canvases which resulted in figurative cubism and refractive effect in his paintings.
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