ACHALA GUNAWARDHANA

Achala is not only a graduate teacher. She is born to teach.

She has functioned as an art teacher in many government schools, hence she brings so much experience to Art Way Gallery/Institute. She offers her services to the institute as its Chairman, partnering Sudath, her husband, who functions as the Managing Director.

She possesses the skill of making kids go beyond scribbling and venture into real art.

Achala is a classic example of one of the institute’s golden rules regarding teaching art; a teaching slot must be filled by someone who can teach students to draw and not necessarily by someone who has only the ability to draw.

Once graduating from the Institute of Aesthetic Studies at the University of Kelaniya Achala also completed the Diploma offered by the College of Education.

Children who come to her at the institute are taken through a comprehensive course in art. Students are given specialized activities through which individual skills are polished. Students who work with her grasp in no time why they are drawing and bloom like flowers in a nursery. Student-teacher bonds are created quite naturally where ever she teaches. Students who work with her show the urge to enhance their studies in art and go deeper in a world of paint and canvas. Most of her assignments to them are creative exercises.

Achala is a self-motivated teacher and when there is an urge to draw she reproduces nature on canvas herself. Going down memory lane she had her moments in art holding exhibitions here and participating at international exhibitions in China and Korea. She won special awards many times at the Korean Art International Open Exhibition. She has also attended many art workshops in China and Korea.

A point to highlight in her career is winning first place at the 2012 ‘State Art Sculpture’ exhibition.,/span>

When she is not teaching she offers her services as a counselor in visual and performing arts at the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and National Heritage.