Tissa De Alwis is a Sri Lankan sculptor known for his unique miniature plasticine figures arranged in elaborate "sets" depicting military history and conflicts. Over his career spanning decades, he has created detailed plasticine soldiers, horses, vehicles, and mobiles in varied mediums. His intricately crafted works have been displayed in exhibitions internationally and have addressed contemporary issues in Sri Lanka.

1. TISSA
DE
ALWIS

2. • Tissa De Alwis was born in 1956 in Pitakotte, Sri Lanka.
• He is a potter, ceramicist and modeller and lives and works in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
• Over the past 30 years he has developed his unique style using simple materials
such as plasticine, wire and randomly found objects that come together to create a
one-of-a-kind range of miniatures.
• His idiosyncratic miniature scenes created of plasticine and found materials draw
on contemporary conflicts, imagined worlds and military history.
• his idiosyncratic assemblages, mobiles and ´sets´ of plasticine soldiers draw on an
interest in military history.
• They provide an absurdist commentary on contemporary war and violence.
• His work relating to the Sri Lankan conflict was selected for the prestigious Legacy
Project, a website including works by artists around the world commenting on
historical tragedies of the 20th century.
• He has used plasticine since the early 1990s and also includes terra cotta and
found materials such as combs, cloth and various ephemera in his sculptures.

3. • Tissa de Alwis is a leading Sri Lankan sculptor in clay
and wire.
• An activity in modelling plasticene into forms, in a
child's fantasy world in nursery school, developed into
an occupation with modelling clay, recreating forms
inspired by cartoon characters and figures of the wild
west that a boy grows up with in an urbanized milieu.
• Encouraged by his parents and mostly by his mother, a
dance teacher, he showed a prodigious talent at a
young age. In recognition of his gift, the Ceylon Society
of Arts chose his work for exhibition in 1963, when
Tissa was only 7 years old.

4. • Moving onto the more sophisticated media of potter's and ceramic
clay in the early seventies, Tissa retained his fascination for
plasticene
• I first got my hands on clay or to be more accurate ´Plasticine´ in
Nursery School when about 4-5 years old. Today most of the work I
do with Plasticine, has to do with maintaining my ´sets´ or groups of
figures, colour coded in green, blue, red, and yellow or making a
figure or a group on personal request. Most of my time has been
spent making Terra Cotta or Ceramic Work. However, the
fascination with plasticine remains probably because of the ability
to mix colours here and now, like with painting rather than doing it
in stages, and the fact that you can use plasticine to juxtapose two
or more objects to make a new picture.

5. • He has taught in workshops organized by
Sarungalei Walakulai and Hope for Children
working with displaced children and teachers of
disabled children, and has also run a workshop in
clay art at the British Council Young Learners
Centre.
• Teaching has also taken Tissa to Australia, where
he taught at the Queensland University of
Technology for a semester. As the sculptor
himself states, teaching complements and
energises his work.

6. Untitled
Date: 2002
Medium: Found object
Dimensions: 12 inches high

7. Oh say, it's a small island
Date: 2002
C-print
Size: 3 x 5

8. • In today´s Electronic World with its proliferation of
imagery I feel free to use printed images sometimes of
other artist´s work as backdrops or to give exact
location to my sets or assemblages. Sometimes I do
this. With the intention of taking photographs and
blowing them up to make big pictures!
I also hope to use figures from one or more sets as
characters for the purpose of making a story board,
with a time machine flavour for a series of Video
Cartoons or Audio Visuals that I believe, will be a
popular medium for all Visual Artists in the future.

9. Soldier Set I
Artist: Tissa De Alwis
Date: 1997
Medium: Clay and wire assemblage
Dimensions: variable
Event: Sri Lankan Conflict
Motif: Violence

10. • sets’ of plasticene soldiers which recall the sub-continental tradition of the
miniature. He describes these idiosyncratic and fantastic works as ‘Persian
miniatures in 3-dimensions’.
“My subject matter originates to a great extent from an interest in Military
History and also, I am sure, influenced by Films I have seen and Books I
have read as well as Current Affairs in my own country and the rest of the
world. ”
• The green set is made up of mostly modern Military Prototypes drawn
from all around the world. Time frame the present.
• The blue set is European/Napoleonic. Time frame late the 17th Century to
late 19th Century. The red set is Middle Eastern, Arabic, and the same
time frame as the blue set.
• A red set in the same time frame creates the Middle Eastern grouping,
• The yellow set is generic armies that loosely recall a Sri Lankan Kandyan
army from a feudal past . Time frame late 16th Century to the present.
• While these sets are basically self contained, two sets can be grouped
together to make a surrealist picture as with the green and blue sets.
• INSERTED among the troops are female participants that augment the
sense of the absurd and playful
• These miniature human figures are given an added sense of fantasized
reality in their ominous groupings.

11. Yellow Set
Date: 1999
Medium: plastercine, found objects

15. The Blue Set.
Inspired by European/Napoleonic military from the late 17th Century to late 19th
Century, the set features 20 figures made from plasticine, wire, cloth and gold thread.

18. The Green Set: Plasticine miniatures with wire & cloth detail, inspired
by modern Military Prototypes drawn from all around the world.

21. The 2013 collection of Dutch Soldiers.
Materials: Plasticine, ceramic clay, wire.
Photography by Luxshmanan Nadaraja

25. • The wire sculptures, like the wonderfully ethereal
dragon which the artist calls his "doodles in wire"
remind us that there is more to this artist's
imagination than the preoccupation with the
military, which he himself points out is a
reflection of the times and place he lives in.
• The wire sculptures, and the miniature wild
horses juxtaposed and interspersed in his sets,
draw heightened interest because of the military
quality of the sets.

26. Wire Horses.

27. Horse made of Copper Wire

28. Dutugemunu - one half of the famed Elara-Dutugemunu set, depicting
the historic battle between the two Sri Lankan kings.

30. Gilded figure...

33. • Working with the Ceylon Ceramic Corporation as a modeller and studio
potter, he widened the sculptor's scope in mastering his art when he
exhibited in ceramic art in the late seventies.
• His involvement in creating models of soldiers on horseback for a film set,
brought the sculptors' fascination of horses as 'beasts of war" into focus.
• His resulting group of these armed men on horseback was exhibited in the
mid eighties, at the American Centre in Kandy and Colombo.
• These figures were the early beginnings of Tissa de Alwis's 'sets' as were
the exquisitely sculptured miniature horses interspersed in his display of
military sets.
• The sculptor moves his exhibiting space in Calderesque style to the air
above these earthbound figures, to a set of flying military machines,
including terracotta helicopters and fighter jets, set into light relief by a
"Sky Rider" - a flying machine moulded in wire carrying a colourful rider.
• The mobiles and terra-cotta sculptures function in association with the
sets and are made from a range of found materials such as combs,
suitcase handles, coat hangers and other ephemera.
“ I also back up, enhance or elaborate on sets with red clay (Terra Cotta) or
Glazed Ceramic Works and Mobiles, for example the Tank, Submarine,
Helicopter and Aeroplane with the green set. ”

37. rtist: Tissa De Alwis
Date: 1987
Medium: Clay and wire mobile sculpture
Dimensions: 28.5 (l) x 26 cm (w) x 10 cm (h)
Event: Sri Lankan Conflict
Motif: Violence

42. • Tissa de Alwis´s plasticine figures present a miniaturised
and deeply fantastical view of military history.
• Whether arranged in armies or piloting mysterious wire
flying machines, his figures portray a sharp wit and
command that outweighs the modesty of their material
form.
• Ranked according to a specific colour code in a carefully
crafted theatre of found object ´props´ and ´costumes´,
each set of figures suggests playful imaginings that
interweave military and cultural history, sci-fi novels and
boys´ comics.

43. • his intricate and detailed works as ´Persian miniatures in three
dimensions´. The work was selected for the 3rd Asia-Pacific Triennial in
Queensland in 1999,
• the 1st Fukuoka Trienniale in 1999 in Japan.
• he was included in the 2002 the "Art South Asia" exhibition ´Crafty
Thoughts´ exhibition in Liverpool which presented contemporary artists
from Sri Lanka.
• Tissa de Alwis's work was included in the exhibition, "Objects that
Enhance Architecture", organized by the Geoffrey Bawa Trust
• custom installation for several venues including the Lighthouse Hotel,
Galle.
• He was also the Sri Lankan participant at 'Upstream', the international art
event held to commemorate 400 years of the V.O.C. held in Amsterdam
and Hoorn, the Netherlands.
• Tissa is also currently teaching art at The British School in Colombo.

44. • Battle tank 1997
Terracotta
22.9 x 35.6 x 22.9cm
Collection: The artist
S.S.B.N 1997
Terracotta
27.9 x 63.5 x 22.9cm
Collection: The artist
Tiger! Tiger! (Assault rifle as attack helicopter) 1997
Mobile comprising plastic toy gun, plastic, hacksaw blades, insulating tape,
plasticine
15 x 10 x 10cm (approx.)
Collection: The artist
S.A.B.A (Small, agile battle-field aircraft) 1997
Mobile comprising briefcase handle, plastic combs, plastic, plasticine
15 x 10 x 10cm (approx.)
Collection: The artist