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Isaac Falconer is a pseudonym in the spirit of George Eliot (Mary Ann / Marian / Evans) and Isak Dinesen (Karen Christentze von Blixen-Finecke) merely TWO of the giants on whose (proverbial) shoulders I stand.
Isaac: Hebrew, meaning laughter ~ deeply ironic when taken in the context of current and historic Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East.
Falconer: taken from the William Butler Yeats poem, "The Second Coming" (1921): "Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer . . ." ~ an Irish poet's deep lament for the fragmented human relationships which mar post-modern life.
(Dr.) Saku Gunasegaram is a Christian Eelam Tamil [most Eelam Tamils are Hindu]~originally from Sri Lanka (Ceylon)~who is deeply committed to peace~making. She experienced first hand "The 1983 Intensification of Sinhala Genocide Against Tamils" in what Tamils themselves have used an euphemism to describe as: "The '83 Riots." She is in the company of such [sarcastically stated-of course!] "terrorist separatists" as Nobel Peace Prize-winner Elie Wiesel~and _The Boston Globe_~in her calls for justice and equality for Tamils in Sri Lanka~within A Separate and Independent Peaceable Kingdom Light-Filled Tamil Homeland [Eelam]. She is in the company of such [sarcastically stated-of course!] "terrorist separatists" as Nobel Peace Prize-winners Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Amnesty International in calling for the IMMEDIATE, UNCONDITIONAL, REAL and ABSOLUTE release of the 250,000 civilian Tamils [including 100,000 Tamil children] who have REMAINED imprisoned at Manik Farm concentration camp since May 18th, 2009~imprisoned by the neo-Nazi GENOCIDAL fascist Sinhala Sri Lankan government~NOT by "Dirty Tamil Tiger Terrorists." She finds UNACCEPTABLE the "current Sri Lankan government eyewash" of 15-day "passes" to leave Manik Farm concentration camp~which the government wants to call "Tamil and Muslim freedom from dirty Tamil Tiger terrorists." Historically, Tamils were a persecuted minority ethnic population in Sri Lanka~because the "majority" Sinhala population of Sri Lanka believe themselves to be members of a "Aryan Master Race"~like Hitler's Nazi "Aryan Master Race"~and therefore feel "perfectly and naturally entitled" to subjugating "minority Tamils"~in every sense of the word "subjugate"~including the committing of the crime against Tamil humanity that is GENOCIDE. Since 1949 [Nineteen Forty-Nine] Sri Lankan Tamils have faced GENOCIDE. GENOCIDAL attacks against Sri Lankan Tamils [and their children]~including acts of state-sponsored terrorism against civilian Tamils ~perpetrated by successive neo-Nazi GENOCIDAL fascist Sri Lankan Sinhala government administrations since 1949~are currently being perpetrated with complete impunity by the government of neo-Nazi GENOCIDAL Sinhala fascist President Mahinda Rajapakse. The _Times of London_ reported on July 10th, 2009~that "1,400 civilian Tamils per week" had been dying in the concentration camps at Manik Farm~under the control of the neo-Nazi GENOCIDAL Sinhala fascist Sri Lankan government of Mahinda Rajapakse~from May 18th, 2009 until December 1st, 2009. The DIRECT and INDIRECT consequences of Sinhala "Aryan" GENOCIDE against Tamils have decreased the minority Tamil population in Sri Lanka~from 15% [fifteen percent] of the population~to 3.9% [three point nine percent] of the population in 2009 [CIA World Factbook]. It is completely wrong to characterize such a lopsided "DESPERATE effort to combat neo-Nazi Sinhala government fascism and GENOCIDE"~conducted by the LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam]~such a classically "David vs. Goliath scenario" as "civil war"~when Tamils have endured so much GENOCIDE~and decreased so dramatically as a percentage of Sri Lanka's population.
The so-called "military defeat" of the LTTE~by the Sri Lankan army~on May 18th, 2009~is as if The Allied Command [in "band of ragged men" form] or The French Resistance had been defeated by fascist Nazi Germany. BELIEVE IT OR NOT the "good guys" LOST. After all~would anyone in their "right mind" term The Allied Command fighting Nazis in WWII~"terrorists?" Only "Nazi-emulators"~or hideously racist White Supremacist Equivalents~ like Rajapakse and his stalwart compadres-in-genocide~term those fighting on behalf of victims of genocide ~"terrorists." Even though neo-Nazi genocidal Sri Lankan Sinhala fascist President Mahinda Rajapakse declared an "end" to the "civil war" on May 18th, 2009, TODAY, July 30th, 2010 [ONE CALENDAR YEAR LATER]~250,000 [two hundred and fifty thousand] innocent, defenseless, vulnerable, unarmed, emaciated, completely destitute civilian Tamils~among them approximately 100,000 [one hundred thousand] Tamil children~many with shrapnel embedded in their bodies~ untreated for years in some cases~REMAIN "trapped" in the North and East of Sri Lanka. These displaced refugees are granted NO FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT by the neo-Nazi GENOCIDAL Sinhala fascist military that "guards" them. As of December 1st, 2009 130,000 civilian Tamils HAVE NO PLACE TO GO~even though Manik Farm concentration camp has "technically" been "opened"~having had their homes, schools and hospitals bombed-down-to-cinders-and-ashes~NOT BY THE DIRTY TAMIL TIGER TERRORISTS~but by their own fascist and genocidal neo-Nazi Sinhala Sri Lankan government. Between May 18th, 2009 and December 1st, 2009 it is thought [no independent verification of ACTUAL NUMBERS was or IS ever POSSIBLE due to the pernicious obstructionism of the fascist Sinhala Sri Lankan authorities] that 550,000 unarmed civilian Tamils were imprisoned behind Nazi concentration camp-evoking barbed-wire fencing~deprived of proper amounts of water, food, access to sanitation and medical care~and deprived [by the "active impediment" created by the fascist Sinhala government] of "true access" to the assistance of the International Red Cross [ICRC]. 550,000 innocent Tamil civilians have faced the Asian monsoon rains-which have "arrived" on schedule for centuries. They faced the torrents of "killer" raw sewage running through their overcrowded camps. Even though the prisons were "technically" opened as of December 1st, 2009~the DESTITUTE Tamils were only permitted to leave on 15-day military passes[!] On July 9th, 2009 the Sinhala Sri Lankan government "banned" the ICRC from operating in the North and East of Sri Lanka~the ICRC being the ONLY "independent" source of information on the conditions within the concentration camps run by the Sri Lankan government. A fragile and tenuous peace (a ceasefire) HAD held from 2002-2006 when peace talks brokered by Norwegian diplomats between the government and the "separatist" Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam [LTTE]~labeled "terrorists" by the neo-Nazi GENOCIDAL Sinhala fascist Sri Lankan government ~for their brave and honest and open DREAM of a cultural genocide -free/all forms of genocide-free "Independent Peaceable Kingdom Light-Filled Tamil Homeland" ~broke down. The label "terror group" got attached to the LTTE "after" the tragic events of September 11th, 2001~18 years "after" the beginning of what the media coverage refers to as the "civil war"~because the neo-Nazi GENOCIDAL Sinhala fascist Sri Lankan government perceived a "beautiful opportunity" for finding a "new manufactured legitimacy" for wiping out all the "remaining" Tamils who live in Sri Lanka. The neo-Nazi GENOCIDAL Sri Lankan government of Sinhala fascist President Mahinda Rajapakse continuously bombed and shelled [with heavy artillery] innocent civilian Tamils in the North of Sri Lanka, beginning in January 2008 and ending in May 2009 ~relentlessly~for 17 [seventeen] straight months~openly flouting The Geneva Convention~openly flouting international calls for a ceasefire~made by the U.S. government~by the United Nations~and by the European Union.
Dr. Gunasegaram has made a living as a professional scientist and a professional artist in the USA and in Italy, since 1995. She has been a pacifist legal permanent resident (green card holder) of the USA since 1990. Dr. Gunasegaram has been a convinced Quaker, a member of The Religious Society of Friends (Philadelphia Yearly Meeting) since 1998.
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Falconer/Gunasegaram is a deeply spiritual person and her art grows out of her spirituality and her sensitivity. It also grows out of her feminism, represented by the element of gold symbolically woven into the construction of her art. Her use of paper as the support for her painting perfectly reflects her weltanschaung. The sensitivity of paper is quite different from that of canvas. Paper changes the nature of the paint as it absorbs the pigment but it also is changed by the act of absorption. As in Eisenberg's Uncertainty Principle where the mere fact of observation affects the results, Falconer/Gunasegaram absorbs her environment and changes it in the process. She measures the emotional content of those around her as well as her surroundings and her paintings are a litmus test of her findings. Further, there is a Rorschach ink blot test quality to the backgrounds of many of her pieces. What we end up with is a body of work that asks a question and then answers it; the background asks and the foreground answers. Like William Blake, Falconer/Gunasegaram is a visionary artist, one who searches her soul for the light within. Since 2007, the minimum price for a framed painting has been EURO 50,000. |
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