About

Mr.Edwin Batawala was born in 1942 to a middleclass trade family from Kandana, Gampaha district. He was the second child of the family with two brothers and one sister. All siblings were gifted with some form of fine arts, be it singing, playing violin, painting or crafting. He had his primary and secondary education from De Maznod College, Kadana. After Advanced Level examination, he joined the Government College of Fine Arts (Heywood Institute Arts) and studied painting at profesional level. Later on he joined the Department of Small Industries as a designer. At the same time he was working as a freelance comic artist at Dasuna and Chitra Mitra comics. During this time he was introduced to Art Direction and worked in several Sinhala movies as an Art Director. Later on he moved to painting film cut outs. In an era where there was no digital printing, Mr.Batawala's film cut outs were very sought after by the industry.

Mr.Edwin Batawala got married to Miss. Nirmalee Perera from Kelaniya in 1972 and the couple had two sons. They settled in Gampaha and Mr.Batawala carried on with his full time job in the Department of Small Industries and part time jobs as a comics artist and film cut out painter until 1978. In 1978, he resigned from Department of Small Industries and became a full time cut out artist. With another artist Mr.Sunil Nishantha, Mr.Batawala formed Chalana Arts and did some wonderful cut outs for very popular films like Viragaya and Siri Madura. With the 88/89 insurgency, film industry was put into a hold and so did Mr. Batawala's time as a cut out artist. Not being one to despair in lifes' changes, he then turned his talents into advertising. He started from Zenith Advertising, then went on to work in King and Johns, Mel Ads, and finally he retired from Creative Base in 2001. Meanwhile he worked as a painter for several art galleries such as Lakmedura, Laksala, Platae, Legend and Serendib Gallery.He had two solo exhibitions, one called "Facets' in 1996 and another called 'Experience of Tea" in 2005.In his later years he was renowned as a portrait painter and led a very busy life until he passsed away in 2018 at the age of 76.