Kavinda Silva

Kavinda Silva is a Sri Lankan artist who only got into his formal studies in visual art until his late teens. The curiosity of a young artist to explore the work of the historical artists around the world gave him a sense of taste, perhaps the most important component of an artistic education. While he was finishing up the Bachelors of Science from the Colombo University, Kavinda enrolled in the Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts, Sri Lanka, where he dedicated himself studying the fundamentals of drawing and painting figure studies.

A versatile painter, Kavinda's artistic output includes landscapes and still-lifes, however, he feels specially compelled to paint the most classical artistic subjects, the human figure. Actually, his vision is the opposite of what a camera does. When a photograph tends to flatten an image reducing all relationships of color to a stiff mechanical pattern, his skill lies in his ability to probe in and around his subject.

He sees nuances of value and hue that the most people can never see. He is able to translate his highly nuanced vision into a painted image. Seeing one of his paintings involves entering into the pictorial world he has created. He is also influenced by the artists of nineteenth century naturalist movement, and like those painters, Kavinda Silva prefers to work in a limited palette to create his unique sense of mood.