Kavan Balasuriya (b. 1992, Colombo, Sri Lanka) 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.

Reach out directly here: kavanbalasuriya@gmail.com

Book a call here: https://calendly.com/kavanbalasuriya/30min

Portrait courtesy: Tavish Gunasena, 2022

I’m an artist and writer working with drawing and engraving. Through mark-making, geometry, and architectural motifs, I explore the thresholds between abstraction and realism.

Using aluminium foil and ink, I create monochromatic, experimental engravings that extend from my drawing practice. My interest lies in how form and function can generate abstract compositions. What began as explorations in ink and charcoal evolved into working with foil: an experiment in how drawing can lead to emergent material phenomena.

Aluminium foil, with its reflective and responsive surface, allows me to investigate light and shadow, movement and stillness, surface and depth. Its sensitivity to its environment invites the viewer’s presence, making perception an active part of the work. Moving between ink and foil enables me to learn from each medium, with their distinct processes shaping one another. 

The Interstice series explores repetition, tracing, tactility, reflection, and the dualities of permanence and impermanence through engraving, embossing, and drawing. The foil’s textures act like a membrane, where traces of mark-making become integral to the composition.

Unlike traditional printmaking, my engravings do not serve as matrices for printed images. Each foil plate is a standalone object, valued for its surface and material presence.

I am inspired by the cyclical structures of time that shape perception. We inhabit the instantaneous while coexisting with the slow rhythms of geological time. For me, light and shadow act as vectors of both time and space—the same elemental forces that shape process, change, and becoming.