මම   Ma_Mȧ

My alter ego, Ma-Mȧ, presented itself when I was studying an illustration in a palm leaf manuscript. Two curious characters who appeared to be both distinct and conjoined kept demanding my attention. I decided that I would feature them in each of the leaves of my painting ‘6 Leaves’, first looking left and then right, ascending vertically as history unfurled.

මම Ma-Mȧ translates into Sinhala as I. Although මම has two letters which look the same, each is pronounced differently by a native speaker. When not using diacritics, Ma-Me is the closest pronunciation in English. This resonates with my double consciousness. Whenever the image of මම is pigmented, my alter ego is both brown and white.