THE IDEOLOGICAL TRANSITION OF SRI LANKAN ARTISTS: WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE WORKS OF APE KATTIYA  AND THE GENERATION NOURISHED BY APE KATTIYA

The purpose of this study is to make an analytical identification of the existence of an art  circle centred in Colombo in the mid-20th century. Accordingly, our study was carried out on the Ape Kattiya art circle, a group that contributed to the major literary and art genres of Sri Lanka during the post-independence period. Ape Kattiya was made up of young people who  came to Colombo in the late 1950s from rural and semi-urban bases for employment. There is  no academic study of this field of study, and our study intends to fill that vacuum. The specialty of Ape Kattiya group of artists is that they are a group of people who have worked in the field of literature and art in Sri Lanka, inspired by the contemporary philosophical and cultural foundations of the world. Ape Kattiya was inspired by existentialism, which was a major philosophical trend that was further discussed in Europe especially after the Second World War. They were also influenced by the counter cultural trends that prevailed in Europe and America in the 1950s and 1960s against the social existence of the 1950s. Thus, our study  focused on the study of the ideological background of Ape Kattiya art circle, and it was  analytically constructed based on contemporary social, economic, political, and cultural  conditions. The specialty of Ape Kattiya art circle is that they practiced their ideological  approaches not only in the fields of literature and art, but also in their day-to-day lives. Also, the socio-economic and political moment in which Ape Kattiya was formed can also be described as a moment when such ideological conditions were expected. In this study, we analysed the ideological bases and displacements of the Ape Kattiya art circle, and built the research as a problem to analyse whether current generations are in that kind of existentialist ideological position. Thus, we analysed the reasons why the present generation cannot achieve an existentialist ideological status. This research is systematically based on qualitative data and data analysis. Accordingly, in this research, primary data was obtained from a large number of contemporary artists, critics, and authors who were in contact with Ape Kattiya, and data was also extracted from many people who contribute to different literature and art fields today. Secondary data during the research was obtained from, critiques, reviews, research, and analysis of Ape Kattiya, as well as the use of original artworks by Ape Kattiya. In this research, it was possible to create a map of the ideological variation in the field of literature and art in Sri Lankan society after independence.  It also investigated the conditions under which the liberal life built with bilingualism of the colonial moment in Sri Lankan society and how it became a community with a national and ethnic basis with subsequent social, economic, and political phenomena.