Diyabubula in Sinhalese means "bubbling water" This fresh water spring refreshed and quenched the thirst of many pilgrims and travelers to the nearby Dambulla Buddhist Cave Temples. The land was owned by Nimal Senanayake, Laki’s lawyer brother who received it is as a part payment for a brief.
A painter, landscape artist, architect, sculptor and innovator are the cascade of titles that trail after the name Laki Senanayake. Yet the artist himself likens his numerous creative accomplishments to “eating ice cream, to indulge in one thing only to move on to another”; a means he says, to keep boredom at bay.
Dressed in his regulation sarong and t-shirt, Laki Senanayake looks like there are few things he takes seriously – certainly, he doesn’t count his reputation as an ‘artist’ among them. “I’m assured by various people…that I’m Sri Lanka’s leading artist – God knows where I’m leading anyone,” he says, grinning.
Laki Senanayake (1937 – ) has been painting and drawing since the age of three. He Spent the years from 1946 to 1956 in various educational institutions gathering little moss. Laki Found Art as enforced in school tiresome and devoted his time to bounding about on a diving board.
I find Laki Senanayake perched among his sculptures in the Barefoot gallery, laughing as he talks with the staff. He’s bare-chested, dressed in a bright orange sarong, his modesty preserved by a shawl in bright pink, red and orange slung over his shoulders. He has a red lighter tucked into the fold of fabric at his waist. He is 78 years old.