In­nis Fran­cis

The hid­den truth of our lives is of­ten framed as a de­c­la­ra­tion to leave the past in the past, but this was not the case for An­cil Rooplal, a Vi­su­al Arts Sec­ondary School art teacher who used the can­vas to un­earth his past.

Maranatha is a de­scrip­tive 12-piece es­say por­tray­ing Rooplal’s bro­ken­ness and how he found his way back to Christ.

Up­on en­ter­ing Arn­im’s Art Gal­le­ria Lim­it­ed at Bam­boo Bay Road, Gulf View, La Ro­maine, on May 4, each acrylic paint­ing jumps out at you with earthy tones that draw you in­to a fa­mil­iar space in your own life.

For Rooplal, it sig­ni­fies the com­ing of the Lord af­ter be­ing ab­sent from a life built by his par­ents for 15 years. He ex­plained the re­newed joy and con­tent­ment he found in re­turn­ing to Christ.

His col­lec­tion be­gan with four pieces: Reach­ing for Re­demp­tion, For­sak­en, Foot­steps of Sal­va­tion, and Lift­ing the Weight of Sin; a jour­ney he said was prompt­ed when Fa­ther Robert Chris­to in­vit­ed him to share mur­al ideas for the church.

Rooplal said each paint­ing in the Maranatha se­ries em­bod­ies the epit­o­me of his per­son­al life strug­gles and his ab­sence from the church.

Us­ing his paint palette wise­ly, Rooplal em­ployed colours that res­onate through­out the paint­ings, tap­ping in­to his thoughts of long­ing, re­turn­ing to the church and be­ing de­liv­ered.

He said his artis­tic jour­ney has been ex­ten­sive and con­tin­ues to grow. As a teacher for the past 17 years, he has been in­stru­men­tal in writ­ing the cur­ricu­lum for Vi­su­al Arts in pri­ma­ry schools and serv­ing as part of a re­view pan­el for the sec­ondary schools’ cur­ricu­lum.

Rooplal said he grew up in the quaint coun­try­side of Ran­cho Que­ma­do in Pa­lo Seco. He is mar­ried and a proud fa­ther of a 14-year-old son. He said he bet­ter un­der­stands the role of be­ing a good fa­ther, based on the strug­gles he ex­pe­ri­enced with his own fa­ther, and how he now de­votes him­self to par­ent­ing more wise­ly.

As he read an ex­cerpt from his son, Math­ais, who com­ment­ed in the art gallery book, “May you have peace and love with you.”

From Math­ais’ ex­cerpt, Rooplal’s tone shift­ed. “Fam­i­ly is im­por­tant to me... it is not a chal­lenge, it is not a task, this is some­thing that comes nat­u­ral­ly. But I want to paint, and I want to share this sto­ry with peo­ple. I want peo­ple to look at it, and I want it to res­onate with them,” Rooplal said.

He said oth­er art pieces he worked on can be seen at Buenos Aires RC, Erin RC, Los Bo­jos RC, St Paul’s RC, Pla­tonique RC, San­ta Rosa RC, and a 20-by-10 mur­al at the St Do­minic’s RC Church sanc­tu­ary.

Rooplal said, “You don’t have to be Catholic or a Chris­t­ian to un­der­stand the pieces, but when you look at a piece, it tells a sto­ry in your life, some­thing would res­onate with you. Be­cause of my re­newed faith, these pieces were brought to life. I want­ed to share this sto­ry with peo­ple, every day we face bat­tles! I just want to re­mind peo­ple that the bat­tles we face dai­ly, you don’t need to wor­ry about them too much; these bat­tles have been won. They have been dealt with al­ready! When you look at these paint­ings, I hope you can ask your­self a ques­tion about your own faith and if not, then some­thing emo­tion­al or some­thing phys­i­cal will stay with you.”

Rooplal said it is not just about par­ent­ing, nor is it about push­ing a child to get good grades. Based on his ex­pe­ri­ences teach­ing at San Fer­nan­do East Sec­ondary School, he not­ed, “It is just about Maths and Eng­lish, but to sup­port their artis­tic ca­pa­bil­i­ties to be cre­ative and to ex­plore their cre­ative abil­i­ties.”

He said be­ing cre­ative of­fers bal­ance in life, and it is im­por­tant for the holis­tic de­vel­op­ment of the child.