“Puducherry Blue”, an exhibition of paintings done at a South Asian artists' camp held at Puducherry, India, under the auspices of ICCR in 2010, was inaugurated at the J. D. A. Perera Gallery in Colombo on 5th April by Hon. Mr. S. Alavi Mowlana (Jamal Allai), Governor, Western Province, Sri Lanka, in the presence of Mr. Ashok K Kantha, High Commissioner of India.

The exhibition consists of 32 paintings by artists from 9 South Asian countries - Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The Puducherry camp, which brought 32 of the most promising artists from the South Asian region together under one roof, was born of the belief that art knows no boundaries and hence no prejudices. Puducherry Blue was thus a step beyond diplomacy, to achieve solidarity and to share a bonhomie and friendship through the universal medium of art. The camp highlighted the close bonds and the common cultural heritage that all South Asian countries share. It also helped deepen understanding within the South Asian region by providing the artists a platform to interact and mingle socially with each other through the medium of art. The thirty two artists who converged in Puducherry set the stage for a unique interaction among charged minds from varied backgrounds, style and schools of thought. The paintings exhibited in this exhibition are the actual paintings done in the camp. By exhibiting these works in Sri Lanka, the Indian Cultural Centre, Colombo expects further interaction among art lovers based on the styles and sensibilities that benchmarked the creativity of the artists.

The Puducherry Blue exhibition can be viewed between 11.00 a.m and 7.00 p.m till12th April 2011 at the J.D.A.Perera Gallery, No.46, Horton Place, Colombo 07. Following are the artists whose works are exhibited in the collection:

Mehreen Zuberi (Pakistan), Amber Hammad (Pakistan), Latifa Meeran (Afghanistan), Enayatullah Niazi (Afghanistan), Chandraguptha Thenuwara (Sri Lanka), Sanjeewa Kumara (Sri Lanka), Tshewang Tenzin (Bhutan), Karma Zangmo (Bhutan), Erina Tamrakar (Nepal), Birendra Pratap Singh (Nepal), Alokesh Gosh (Bangladesh), Md. Rafiqun Nabi (Bangladesh), Mariyam Omar (Maldives), Kyaw Shein (Myanmar), John Tun Sein (Myanmar), Ajay Rajgarhia (Delhi), Kota Neelima (Delhi), Mona Rai (Delhi), Masooma (Delhi), Sumedh Rajendran (Delhi), Amitava Das (Delhi), Niladri Paul (Delhi), Farhad Hussain (Delhi), Prabhakar Kolte (Mumbai), Vanita Gupta (Mumbai), Vilas Shinde (Mumbai), Jin Shook Shinde (Mumbai), Debnath Basu (Kolkata), R. Bala (Chennai), Parvathi Nayar (Chennai), Zakir Hussain (Kerala) and V. Ramesh (Hyderabad).