Ashley Halpé, Pasan, 1952-1987
Mixed media (oil and fragments of straw on canvas board), 60 by 50 cm, collection of Bridget and Ashley Halpé.

The painting is a threnody for Lanka as is my long poem of the same name. “Pasan” means Passiontide lamentations; these are still sung by the Catholic people of the West Coast. My lamentations are for the horrors enacted in this country during the last half-century. I first became conscious of underprivilege when working with slum children as an undergraduate in the early 1950s--the white figure at centre right is a slum child in a typical environment. The country and its writers and artists were deeply shaken by the youth insurrection of 1971 and the ruthless backlash: The skull in the centre memorializes this. The flames at the top and reflected elsewhere are in memory of the burnings of Tamil homes and the carnage of 1983. The almost faceless figure with a sub-machine gun is both terrorist and vigilante.
(Ashley Halpé)