Ushering in the new year, Saskia Fernando Gallery will present artist Randika de Silva’s debut solo exhibition Coexist. In the exhibition, Randika will mediate the intricate and complex entanglements of human experiences and emotions, through a series of sculptures created using fabric. The somewhat organic and surreal series explores the dynamic inner world of emotional turmoil, vulnerability, and resilience - an interplay that moulds each person into a unique individual.

Randika de Silva graduated from the University of Moratuwa with a Bachelor's in Design with a specialisation in fashion and lifestyle design. Randika de Silva is one of the A4A Production Fund grantees from the year 2021, a project founded by the Udayshanth Fernando Foundation and Saskia Fernando Gallery to support emerging talent in the country. As a part of the final group presentation of the A4A Production Grant, De Silva presented her work for the first time in an exhibition titled Creatures of Thought. She has also participated in a 4-day residential workshop, ‘All Right Angles’ at Lunuganga.

De Silva draws on the language of soft sculpture that was pioneered by artists like Yayoi Kusama, Eva Hesse, and Sarah Lucas. Her practice blends drawing, textiles and sculpture through which she often questions the dynamic quality of human thoughts, and in the process, they offer the viewer a glimpse into her own quirky imagination. She begins her process with scribbles, sketches, and incoherent phrases, which gradually morph into fabric sculptures. The malleability of the materials the artist works with allows her ideas and work to transform multiple times before they become structures that inhabit a physical space.