At 16, Supun Dulram became enthralled with the idea of creating artwork in a digital platform, and since that first moment where he realised that his passion was in creating art, he hasn’t looked back.
Over the years, despite the many challenges in pursuing the arts as a profession in Sri Lanka, Supun persisted and today, he is proud to be a full-time creator with numerous notable artworks to his name.
Speaking with Supun, he shared that making a living as an artist is difficult in Sri Lanka but not impossible. He said that he has managed to branch out with his work in such a way that he is able to indulge in his passion while also drawing in an income.
He shared that his big break came from his achievement on Fiverr where he was made a top-rated artist on the site for some of his works, which brought him the recognition he needed and the boost that really propelled him and his work to the next level. “I was able to generate a really great income from my involvement on Fiverr. The laptop that I currently use, my car, Wacom Tab, even a DSLR camera, and my dog, I was able to purchase all of this from my earnings coming from Fiverr,” he said.
Supun, who has a passion for sharing his knowledge and his story, especially sharing the intimate details of his successes, shared that he always tells people his Fiverr story because he hopes that it would encourage other passionate creatives to just keep trying even if art is not their main pursuit just yet. “Back then I had applied to university, I really had no idea what I should be doing, no money to my name, it was difficult, but I kept sharing my work, attempting to get as many freelance gigs as possible, and I just kept my head down and kept learning and improving,” he said.
He shared that even today, he feels that he hasn’t quite achieved his ultimate expectations; however, he is incredibly grateful for the opportunities that have come his way.
Supun has contributed his artwork to a couple of music videos, notably Wewal Paarata (වේවැල් පාරට) by Tharaka Gunarathne and even Dakina Dawasaka (දකින දවසක) by Shashika Madhushani where his artwork was featured in these respective official lyric videos.
He shared that as a creator and digital artist, he feels that he is in the process of carving out a niche for himself, adding that as of now, his preference is to do realistic illustration. However, he hopes to mirror realism in a world that is created entirely out of scratch. “I want to depict familiar realistic images in fantasy scenarios,” he said, adding that he much prefers to create something entirely new and create character-based illustrations rather than just do straightforward portraits.
Considering that he is after all a professional artist, Supun shared that he has a graphics design initiative where he creates logos which is essentially his bread and butter. He added that he would really like for artists to make note of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) which he believes to be the future of art work and in being able to make a living off of one’s creativity. He shared that much of his income is reliant on NFTs at the moment and he feels the future is bright for artists and creatives if they are to look into these alternative forms of income generators.
Supun noted that he is also currently in the process of creating art for an upcoming cartoon/animation series. He said that if all goes according to plan, audiences can expect the final work to be released around the end of April.
To keep an eye out for Supun’s upcoming works you can follow him on his socials:
Facebook: DulArtz Graphics, Logos .lk
Instagram: @supundulram
