Kavan Balasuriya (b. 1992, Colombo, Sri Lanka) is an artist who earned a B.A. in Fine Art at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art & Design, University of the Arts, London, in 2014. He lives and works between Paris, London, and Colombo.
Kavan’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions, including Legacies of Crossings (2024), curated by Zahra Khan, the inaugural showcase of Kalā South Asia (2024), the Serendipity Arts Festival (2018), the Colombo Art Biennale (2016), and Colomboscope (2015, 2016). His first solo exhibition with the Saskia Fernando Gallery was titled Lightlines (2022).
Specialising in drawing and engraving, Kavan’s practice explores the relationship between light and shadow, surface and depth, and abstraction and realism. Primarily working with ink and aluminium foil, his pictures are inspired by the principle of emergence in complex systems. He creates gestural and geometric abstractions, assimilating them into intricate fields of pattern and form– where the whole transcends the sum of its parts.
In his work with aluminium foil, Kavan creates etched surfaces that engage the foil medium as both a ‘site’ and a ‘field’. Drawing from architectural language and reflecting on its influence, he traces the folds and textures of the foil to generate compositions through repetitive and meditative mark-making. The results challenge visual perception by connecting tangible materials with intangible experience, evoking and exploring themes of space, matter, identity, and temporality.
Contact: kavanbalasuriya@gmail.com