Artist

Background

Lionel Sumithran was born in 1963 in KwaZulu Natal South Africa. He grew up with African arts and crafts all around him. From a young age he showed an interest in creating things using found objects like shells, driftwood, leather and beads. Lionel was also strongly influenced by the African music he heard growing up, especially Zulu music. Later he studied classical and jazz music on guitar and piano, and made a career as a full-time musician, touring internationally with South African music. Eventually he settled in Zurich Switzerland and continued his musical career. Throughout his life Lionel has been drawing and painting, teaching himself through watching artist friends paint, studying books, and visiting art galleries and museums. He is strongly influenced by Expressionist art from around the world, and in that tradition, he continues to expand his artworks. Lionel's artwork sells in America, Europe, Africa, and Russia, through people discovering his art online. In 2022, he was selected to participate in the Swiss exhibition: “Africa - The Light Continent.”

Medium

Lionel feels that oil paint is the most forgiving of all mediums. It can be changed, reworked over and over many times. “I love the concept of layering, that's how I create depth. It's always about WHAT LIES UNDERNEATH or WHAT WENT BEFORE.” He starts off with an initial sketch on canvas or panel with charcoal or paint and brush. An outline, setting up a composition of where all things fit into place. He then approaches shapes, big and small forms working together. The darks followed by lights and neutrals. Then comes color. In the process texture becomes a strong feature as he works and reworks. There is constantly an underlying structure and placement that he builds upon.

Inspiration

He is never sure where a painting goes. It might start out with an idea but it's all subject to change. He journeys through each artwork. He never knows when it is finished, but there's a certain feeling he pursues. An internal conversation he has while painting. It's about possibilities and directions to go. When something doesn’t please his eye, he stops, let’s it lie and reworks. “I think where a painting paints itself is the period between when you put fresh paint on a surface, and let it lie, and when you return ...there has been a process happening where the paint has settled or become something else. Or it offers my mind possibilities to take it somewhere. …an image, a thought, a dream can be a starting point where my mind is stirred up to capture it. Mostly what I do becomes a symbolic journey, not really about the subject I'm painting.”