Metal Doctor Exhibits – Skzin And Bones
Text By Sarah Hannan Pictures By Pavithra Jovan De Mello
We have interviewed him many times over his love for metal music, his artistic capabilities and of course about his designer label with a difference – Skzin (pronounced as skin). We were invited to experience ‘Skzin & Bones’ in a whole new level. This was his debut art exhibition, which was held between 26-27 May 2012 at Harold Pieris Gallery, Colombo 07.
As soon as we entered the gallery we saw Dr. Milinda Salpitikorala (affectionately known as ‘Doca’) arranging his t-shirts on the side of the welcome desk. He looked excited, for this was the first art exhibition. Doca gave us a walkover on each of his paintings. One would easily absorb that he is heavily influenced by the music he favours and the profession he is in, and adding to that the symphonic metal music playing on the background placed me on an easy atmosphere to grasp the thoughts he had put out on canvas.
From an early age, Doca was inclined on sketching figures and his first drawing was of his pet puppy, which he had also coloured and as any little child would do he had showed it to his parents. He said that they were pretty shocked of the outcome. He continued his passion for art but had to put it aside when he was facing his advanced level examination. The artist in him remained dormant until he started his second year in medical college, where he got hold of an art pad and a pen and started to sketch away. He says that he was inspired by the studies of human anatomy and had a creative explosion inside him. On one of our issues in 2010 he also mentioned that he was planning to do an exhibition and two years later, we got to experience it. As friends we saw these paintings come to life through the photo gallery in his phone, which he would show us bits and pieces of his work and we would always bug him to do an exhibition.
Today one could easily see his influences; H. R. Giger being on the top, Doca had done a ‘Tribute to Giger’ painting, then I saw the sci-fi, comic book character and the art forms indigenous locally brought out in most of his paintings. But each work of art was different, some looked scary but the beauty hidden beneath the scariness was breathtaking. ‘An Ancient Love Affair’ was a series comprising of 3 paintings, which would take you back in time. Among the exhibited art Dr. Milinda Salpitikorala also unveiled two album cover artworks: ‘The Heresy’ for Fallen Grace’s album ‘Heresy Unveiled’ and for Ablaze’s album cover ‘Unmasked’. Doca had also given space for his friends to exhibit their work and the section was filled with art that were closer to our culture, surreal, comic book character and bio mechanical designs.
Out of all the work displayed, I had my personal favourites;
• ‘DNA Harvesting’ – An interesting piece of art which gives a whole new look to the Darwinian theory on ‘Human Evolution’, which has left me to question myself!? Are we evolving into aliens?
• ‘Good and Evil’ – Presented with a quotation from Paulo Coelho’s The Devil and Miss Prym “Good and Evil have the same face; it all depends on when they cross the path of each individual human being,” depicted an embryo of twins in which one had wings on its back and the other horns on its head. Doca said that he had only given a face for the angel on this drawing and said that the series of paintings which are on angels were faceless.
For those who missed out this exhibition, do not be disheartened as you can always visit his website www.skzin.com and checkout his art and designer t-shirts that are up for grabs. Since I couldn’t afford to own one of his painting I happily settled a t-shirt from ‘Skzin’. We wish him well in life and wait for his next exhibition and the t-shirt designs.
