Asai Rasiah  (b. 1946) is a senior artist in SriLanka  born in Atchuvely, Jaffna. Previously he was the art teacher at RoyalCollege, Colombo. During the riots in 1983, he left Colombo for Jaffna and now he resides in Jaffna and works as a painter. He has also worked as a Visiting lecturer at the Department of Art & Design at Ramanathan Academy of Fine Arts in University of Jaffna. He has designed a number of postal stamps for the Philatelic bureau of Sri Lanka Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan, SirPonnambalamArunachalam, Professor E.P.. Malalasekera, SirJohnKotalawela , GeorgeEdeSilva, Sir Vaithilingam Duraisamy, The First Train in Srilanka, Thavalam and Veerasingam (pioneer Co-operator) Rasiah is a former student of Government College of Fine Arts, presently the Faculty of Visual Arts,University of the Visual and Performing Arts. StanleyAbeysinghe was the principal of the college at that time and Asai Rasiah mainly trained under Stanley Abeysinghe among others.His paintings reflect the institutional discipline maintained by J.D.A. Perera, David Paynter and Stanley Abeysinghe. The main subject matter of paintings of Asai Rasaiah is Jaffna people, Jaffna landscape and hindu culture. These paintings are highly artistic and well composed. His colour tonal range is very broad and interesting. Misty dawn of the morning, landscapes under the bright sun of the midday and scenes when the sun goes down are clearly depicted in his paintings in the context of Jaffna. Jaffna characters can be seen in his figurative compositions.He has done a series of portrait paintings. The characters of the sitters are captured finely in these paintings. The treatment he gives to the facial surface is unique. He is a legacy of contemporary art in Sri Lanka.

By Prof. Sarath Chandrajeewa, Vice Chancellor. Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of the Visual & Performing Arts. Colombo
Sarath Chandrajeewa