Where words fail, art

BY anuSha MEnOn

hey say a picture paints a thousand words. But as I fixed my gaze upon Kamalesh’s harrowing oil painting, I began to wonder whether the age-old idiom did this work enough justice. We’d talked about his time at Villawood Immigration Detention Centre plenty of times before. Yet, nothing he had previously told me quite articulated the grimness of life in mandatory detention as vividly as this painting did.

This picture didn’t just paint a thousand words. It spoke infinite, unutterable words of pain and torture. Kamalesh, a Sri Lankan refugee who spent more than two years detained at Villawood IDC, was eventually granted his visa in September 2011. The artwork, which he describes as “refugee feeling,” was painted while he was still in detention.

I asked him how long he’d been painting, to which he replied, “Before detention, I had not painted”.

I knew he must have been pulling my leg. The quality of Kamalesh’s work clearly attested to a lifetime of making art. But from his serious tone of voice, I knew he wasn’t lying.

“I learned how to paint from the TVS program Masterclass in Oils with Ken Harris. He is my master,” he said with a chuckle. “When I was in detention, I never missed that show”.

But to create paintings with such intricacy and depth, he needed specific brushes and oil paints. Detainees held in Villawood IDC are rarely permitted beyond the centre premises. It would have been impossible for Kamalesh to go shopping for resources. While Ken Harris taught Kamalesh the very basic skills required in landscape painting, it was the volunteers at the Refugee Art Project that provided him with most of the necessary materials he needed to make his art, and gave him the encouragement and professional guidance he needed to hone his skills.

“One of the most fulfilling parts of this project is seeing detainees enjoy themselves in art, and then develop their own creative vision and style in spite of the many burdens and constraints that are placed upon them. This was the case with Kamalesh,” said Dr Safdar Ahmed, founder and director of the project.

The Refugee Art Project began in late 2010 as an initiative to provide art classes for asylum seekers in detention, and to showcase their creative work in public exhibitions. More than a year later, the project remains in full swing.

According to the project’s website, most of the artworks done by detainees share the themes of trauma, exile, hope and endurance. The project’s key intention is to express the stories and experiences of refugees in a manner that fruitfully engages with the general public.

“While refugee supporters do essential and valuable work, it occurred to us that asylum seekers are too often being spoken for or about, with little room to speak for themselves” said Dr Ahmed. “Thus, our idea was to empower refugees by giving them a voice through art to the wider community”.

Villawood IDC holds asylum seekers from different parts of the world. Not all of them have a good grasp of English, let alone a basic understanding of it. Art gives everyone the equal opportunity to speak their minds without having to use actual words.

“I was able to express my feelings through painting,” said Kamalesh. “Whatever materials I needed, I asked Safdar and he brought them in for me.”

An aspect of Kamalesh’s artwork that I found particularly striking was the tears of blood seeping from the hollowed eyes of the eerie humanoid tree in the central foreground of the painting. When I asked Kamalesh what these bloody tears meant he said, “Great sadness.” Was the contorted figure meant to be him?

He smiled and shook his head. “No. It can be any refugee that is suffering from being in detention for such a long time,” was his poignant answer.

On March 30, a parliamentary inquiry into mandatory detention confirmed that 90 percent of detainees suffer clinically significant depression. The report also stated that half this number is diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and a quarter

Tamil asylum seeker

Christmas Island boat tragedy

Dove

Sri Lankan army bombing the Tamils

Right:

Kamalesh (extreme right) with mates at the Refugee Art Project’s kitchen open day