Stories from a Wandering Mind – A Retrospective show by Alex Stewart
Working in the bustling creative centre of London in the 1970s, Alex Stewart (b. 1958) had no idea that a meeting with a colleague named Maya Ratwatte would change the trajectory of his life and art.
Maya and Alex became great friends and through this friendship, he met Dominic Sansoni in London in 1980. When Maya returned to Sri Lanka in the early 1990s, she invited Alex to visit her family home in Kandy. Arriving for the first time in 1993, Alex fell in love with the people and the landscapes, incorporating their natures and colours into his paintings. Maya’s home and family became his base from which he travelled around the island for many years.
Soon after, he visited Barefoot, and met the incomparable Nazreen Sansoni, who had just founded Barefoot Gallery two years earlier alongside Dominic. Alex was offered a space in the gallery to show his paintings. Over the years, Alex travelled, even spending time painting at the home of Mitty Lee-Brown, a doyenne of the Australian art world living in Nilaveli on the northeast coast. The artist was in the country during much of the civil war and later during the tsunami – elements from these life-changing moments alongside the overstuffed lorry, the tuk tuk, the angel in the blue sari, or the couple under the ceiling fan, created a beautifully illustrated visual history of Sri Lanka for over 40 years.
Alex Stewart began painting after a difficult period in his life. He found peace in art making and storytelling, as well as catharsis in working with symbolic figures and themes. Sri Lanka is one of many chapters in his life to be found in his works, but its character maintains a presence, whether in pattern or plant life depicted on paper.
“The cast of characters expand and contract, changing colour, shape and meaning. All is in flux, but each painting seems so specific. Yet when looked at the following day can convey something very different. The meaning is in the eye of the beholder, and theirs to explore.” - Alex Stewart