Using brilliant colours, with tropical flora, fauna and wildlife as his themes, Senaka Senanayke creates what can best be called ‘happy’ art. And why not? Born into one of Sri Lanka’s most prominent political families, recognised as a prodigy at the age of eight, invited to create paintings for The White House and the United Nations building while still in his teens, a graduate of Yale University with over 100 one-man shows behind him, Sananayke has a had a very successful career and, to all intents and purposes, a very happy life.

And Harsha Bhatkal couldn’t have found a better subject to launch himself as an author. The 45 year old chief of the Mumbaibased publishing house Popular Prakashan first met Sananayke three years ago, when he was in Colombo to finalise an educational book project with the Sri Lankan government. “My uncle had a Senaka painting in his drawing room, so I’d grown up seeing his work,” says Bhatkal. “The idea of producing a book to document his work over the past fifty years then emerged in the course of our conversation. I decide to write it myself rather than commission an art critic because we wanted it to be done in a simple style, accessible to ordinary art enthusiasts.”

Harsha Bhatkal & Senaka Senanayke
Simply titled Senaka, Bhatkal’s book is light on text, and concentrates instead on displaying the artist’s work - from his early paintings at the age of 8 to his most recent work at the age of 58. Sananayke is by far Sri Lanka’s most popular painter and the book, priced at Rs 1995, has proved to be a best-seller there, with the first print run of 3,000 copies already sold out. Bhatkal is now planning a second print run for the Indian market, and has plans to produce a mass market edition priced at Rs 250. “Art has become too elitist in India,” he says. “People are confused between buying art and enjoying art, which are essentially two different things.”

A graduate of Sydenham with an MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Bhatkal has been the one responsible for taking the 80 year old Popular Prakashan into art books, beginning with a tome written by 92 year old painter Paritosh Sen last year. Bhatkal has been organising art camps for Indian artists in places like Morocco, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Mexico, Egypt and Jordan - where he pays for the artists’ travel and receives a painting or sculpture in return - and has a collection of over 700 valuable works. In its latest initiative, Popular Prakashan has commissioned a series of books on senior artists like Atul Dodiya, Jahangir Sabavala, KS Radhakrishnan, Arpita Singh, Shakti Burman, to be written by well known art critics like Ranjit Hoskote in Mumbai, Manasij Majumbar in Kolkata and Geeti Sen, Ela Dutta in Delhi.

And what about Bhatkal the author? “I’m not planning to write any more art books,” he says. “I’d like to write fiction. I once wrote some plays in college and I want to try my hand at it again.”