EXHIBITIONS

Launch and Inaugural Exhibition

The Beven Foundation 9 - 13 Sep 2026 The Barefoot Gallery Colombo is delighted to host the inaugural exhibit of the Beven Foundation: The Evolution of an Artist. This is an exhibit created to celebrate the legacy of artist George Beven, and his work spanning seven decades. 

The Beven Foundation is an organisation that seeks to honour the artist’s life and work. The launch will include an essay by Dr Edwin Coomasaru about Beven’s place in the art history canon of Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom, as well as original dresses created by Arsath Furkhan and inspired by Beven’s fashion designs. Read more

Interstices

Karunasiri Wijesinghe 13 Aug - 5 Sep 2026 As a prominent voice with a distinct identity in contemporary Sri Lankan art, Karunasiri Wijesinghe has spent decades immersed in the intimate study of the island’s natural ecosystems - observing the organic architecture of trees, vines, and untamed terrain. The works presented in his exhibitions are best understood not as final endpoints, but as quiet pauses along this lifelong journey of visual inquiry.

“When the intricate forms of trees and vines intertwine, an unexpected abstraction emerges - a stillness within which the true essence of nature reveals itself. My path has been to uncover this inherent abstraction while remaining deeply anchored in organic reality. Having walked this road for over forty years, the unfolding must naturally be deliberate and measured. Look closely at the roots and branches: within their contours lie subtle anthropomorphic and zoomorphic forms - whispers of human and animal presences, filled with rhythm, movement, and life. I strive to bring these evocative presences to the surface. Within nature’s quiet rhythms, a profound aura of mystery reveals itself. To the casual observer, the forest may seem an entangled chaos; my effort is to isolate, distill, and bring clarity to selected fragments so they resonate deeply within the mind. Abstraction is not something added to nature - it is already dwelling within it.”

Karunasiri Wijesinghe, August 2026 Read more

Press with the Toes

Barefoot 3 - 9 Aug 2026 "This piece of cloth, a Reddha, is a woven abstract composition using only geometric colour forms. You can enjoy looking at it indefinitely by noting how colour changes almost totally. They will give you unending pleasure if you notice colour changes in warp and weft, changes in proportions, and the suggested atmosphere: one can see the sea, landscapes, trees, birds, depending on how keen one's eye and imagination. It needs no frame or glass and folds away neatly when you need a change."
— Barbara Sansoni

This exhibition takes its name from Barbara Sansoni's 2004 book of poetry, Press with the Toes in the Grass. Press with the Toes is an ode to the relationship between designer and weaver. The Reddha’s on view are created by the weavers and ten designers of the Barefoot design team, taking forward Barbara Sansoni’s design legacy.

Barbara often spoke about why she called Barefoot "Barefoot." To be barefoot, she said, is to be in touch with the earth, a grounding effect. Weavers press their toes onto the pedals of the loom, weaving with their whole body.

This exhibition is a celebration of those who carry that legacy forward: a celebration of design, colour, people, and skill. Read more

Here and There

Group Show - Curated by Chandraguptha Thenuwara 23 - 29 Jul 2026 Here and There is the inaugural annual exhibition showcasing Sri Lankan artists living abroad whose practices remain deeply connected to the country’s social, political, and cultural realities. Featuring Annette Fernando, Kirushan Sivagnanam, and Anupa Khemadasa, the exhibition explores memory, identity, displacement, and transformation through diverse contemporary artistic practices. Read more

Stories from a Wandering Mind

Alex Stewart 2 - 18 Jul 2026 Stories from a Wandering Mind – A Retrospective show by Alex Stewart

Working in the bustling creative centre of London in the 1970s, Alex Stewart (b. 1958) had no idea that a meeting with a colleague named Maya Ratwatte would change the trajectory of his life and art.

Maya and Alex became great friends and through this friendship, he met Dominic Sansoni in London in 1980. When Maya returned to Sri Lanka in the early 1990s, she invited Alex to visit her family home in Kandy. Arriving for the first time in 1993, Alex fell in love with the people and the landscapes, incorporating their natures and colours into his paintings. Maya’s home and family became his base from which he travelled around the island for many years.

Soon after, he visited Barefoot, and met the incomparable Nazreen Sansoni, who had just founded Barefoot Gallery two years earlier alongside Dominic. Alex was offered a space in the gallery to show his paintings. Over the years, Alex travelled, even spending time painting at the home of Mitty Lee-Brown, a doyenne of the Australian art world living in Nilaveli on the northeast coast. The artist was in the country during much of the civil war and later during the tsunami – elements from these life-changing moments alongside the overstuffed lorry, the tuk tuk, the angel in the blue sari, or the couple under the ceiling fan, created a beautifully illustrated visual history of Sri Lanka for over 40 years.

Alex Stewart began painting after a difficult period in his life. He found peace in art making and storytelling, as well as catharsis in working with symbolic figures and themes. Sri Lanka is one of many chapters in his life to be found in his works, but its character maintains a presence, whether in pattern or plant life depicted on paper.

“The cast of characters expand and contract, changing colour, shape and meaning. All is in flux, but each painting seems so specific. Yet when looked at the following day can convey something very different. The meaning is in the eye of the beholder, and theirs to explore.” - Alex Stewart Read more

Memories of Yaalpanam

Catharina Danial 30 Apr - 23 May 2026 "Time can make a feeling fade but the memory of a first love never fades away." - Samuel Timothy McGraw

‘My art is a representation of the beauty of my home, Yaalpanam-Jaffna. Through my work, I recollect my lived experiences of Jaffna before and after the war, and how it changed over time. I recreate them through landscapes. I translate my memories into works addressing the vividness of childhood recollections- Though faded, they hold significant emotional value.

My work employs collage and mixed media as a conceptual framework to explore memory and heritage. The palette dominated by earth tones and monochromatic hues creates an antique, nostalgic atmosphere that invites reflection. Through layered textures and subtle gilding, the works reconstruct Yaalpanam, not as a static relic, but as a living, evolving memory. The exhibition aims to offer viewers an immersive encounter with this reimagined Yaalpanam, encouraging personal reflection and dialogue. My intention is to create a space where the audience does not merely observe, but emotionally interacts with the work.

This exhibition expresses the essence of Yaalpanam as I experience it - a blend of nostalgia, resilience, and beauty. My practice is rooted in archiving: the homes, kitchens, daily lifestyles, traditions, and histories I have witnessed and inherited. I cannot return to those days, but through my art, I keep them alive.’

- Catharina Danial Read more

Tree of Life

Padrig Morin 16 Apr - 16 May 2026 Padrig Morin amalgamates symbols – Celtic from his native Brittany in France; Buddhist and Hindu from a lifetime living, working and researching in Sri Lanka. In recent years, his art draws parallels between ancient cultures across continents and histories.

The Tree of Life is a universal symbol, but it occupied a central place in Celtic beliefs and worship. It symbolises the connection between Heaven and Earth, mind and body, the physical and spiritual, the seen and the unseen. Ancient Celts believed trees were the ancestors of men. For Padrig, it is an act of re-appropriation, reclaiming, or re-signifying cultural symbols, forgotten or erased by the Christian religion or by the dominant culture. The persistence of an intuitive or atavistic memory links modern Celts to the memory of their ancestors, reflecting a vision in which the tree acts as a fundamental bridge between people, nature, and the sacred.

Other symbolic elements included in Padrig’s works are birds, dogs and numbers, as they intimately blend with certain aspects of the tree of life. Birds are sacred messengers between the natural and supernatural worlds. They often represent deities, signifying wisdom, protection, and the souls of the departed. Dogs are symbols of loyalty and protection, associated with healing gods - their images found at shrines throughout the ancient Celtic world.

Padrig Morin paints civilisations’ contentions with the spirituality of symbols and the power they hold over us. His work also speaks to a loss of cultural identity, through his own experience growing up in France, where the Breton language and its Celtic roots were overshadowed by French national language and culture beginning several centuries ago.

Symbols represent ideas that keep traditions alive. In Padrig’s paintings, we see the yearning for invigorating those symbols once again, drawing on their power to connect people and spiritual practices throughout the world. Read more

ஈசல் Mayfly

Ponnaiyah Peter 2 - 25 Apr 2026 Growing up in the Vanni region during the early stages of the war in Kilinochchi, Ponnaiyah Peter was surrounded by the natural beauty of the land, but also by fear, displacement, and destruction. As a child, he experienced the chaos of war and these experiences deeply influenced his artistic journey. In contrast to joyful events, the war brought dark and complex experiences.

Clouds do not have a fixed position or place. The wind never allows them to stay still in one location, and their journey never ceases. This fleeting, changing quality resonated deeply with Peter and became a recurring symbol in his art. Dark clouds represent emotional responses linked to the deep losses he experienced during the war, which is why these formations are central to his work.

Swarming mayflies emerge from the ground during the rainy season and gather around a
source of light. Unaware that their lives last only for a single day, they move joyfully around the light. Eventually, they lose their wings and move towards the end of their short life. This cycle is a powerful metaphor for Peter. In the midst of war, people lost their identities and lands and were forced into an uncertain future. Through the symbolic form of the insect’s wing, he attempts to make a comparison about these experiences and his own memories. His work seeks to evoke reflection upon memory, loss, displacement, and impermanence. Read more

Alakhshya: One that cannot be perceived

Druvinka Puri 5 - 28 Mar 2026 We are all artists of consciousness, creating our “pictures” of reality. The enduring quest to find the ultimate reality and meaning of the universe merges human scientific discoveries with a spiritual longing for ultimate truth "an unchanging dance of existence beyond time and self" - Druvinka Puri

Born in Sri Lanka and living in the Himalayas in India, Druvinka is a sadhu who practices the ancient occult traditions in India. She has spent over two decades developing an intuitive practice exploring human experience and transcendent realms. Among the first artists exhibited by Barefoot Gallery Colombo, she creates atmospheric canvases in layered washes of greys, blues, sepia, and ochre, often mounting Nepali bamboo paper to form symbolic compartments of karma. Her smaller works draw on the religious symbols and landscapes of her Indian home, forming an ongoing spiritual quest expressed through art. Read more

Neighbours dancing in my garden

Prasad Hettiarachchi 5 - 28 Feb 2026 Barefoot Gallery Colombo is delighted to welcome back Prasad Hettiarachchi, as he continues his inquiry into Sri Lanka’s rapidly changing landscape in his latest solo exhibition, Neighbours Dancing in my Garden.

Centred around ongoing developments across the island, his practice examines the exchange that takes place between those acquiring these lands and those who are displaced as a direct result of it. Read more

RHYTHYM ALLIANCES

Colomboscope 21 - 31 Jan 2026 Rhythm Alliances is an exercise of attunement to the varied dispositions of rhythm—energizing, contrasting, haunting, recurring, turbulent, and imagined. Far more than a static exhibition, it is a celebration of energies and experimental forms. Since experiencing rhythm-making is also an invitation for time-travel, the acts in this edition assemble a communal score of creation, resistance, and alliance-building. Involving over 50 artists and collectives, musicians, choreographers, filmmakers and cultural organizers, the festival programme will continue its pluriversal journey across freely accessible venues in Colombo.

The ninth edition of Colomboscope draws on a range of vocabularies embodying rhythms of remembrance, dissent, and renewal. From the noise of a global order where hyperconsumption and war are rife, how may sonic counter-currents transmit the ingredients of struggles today, make paradoxical realities audible, echo in the lifeways of migrant belonging, and resonate shared dreaming? Across live experiences and exhibited works we will also explore the role of listening in producing relationships of reciprocity and engage with the ways in which acoustic leakages and vocal atmospheres compose new public territories that refute borderlines, data harvesting, and oppressive systems. Read more

NOSTOS

Group Exhibition 18 Dec 2025 - 10 Jan 2026 At Barefoot Gallery, we acknowledge the source of our profound cultural knowledge - the artists, our heroes in both celebratory and turbulent times.

Artistic journeys are filled with challenges - both creative and emotional. In a world where we face thousands of images per day and wonder whether or not these images are AI-generated, how can individual artists speak their truth amidst the visual noise? How can we work together to bring their messages to settle within our collective consciousness?

NOSTOS features 9 exceptional Sri Lankan artists from multiple generations, whose careers have taken them in many directions, at times around the globe. Their artwork speaks to myriad subjects all grounded in Sri Lankan identity - history, politics, the natural world, village life, the mental gymnastics of daily life, all manifested through colour and a mix of media, in order to reflect our contemporary times.

Dominic Sansoni and Barefoot Gallery welcomes Bandu Manamperi, Chaminda Gamage, Chamila Gamage, Channa Ekanayake, K Pushpakumara, Saman Liyanage, Sanath Herath, S H Sarath and Tissa de Alwis to share tales of their journeys, so we might carry their courage into the New Year. Read more

Scrubland: East Coast Essays

Tavish Gunasena 20 Nov - 13 Dec 2025 ‘Scrubland: East Coast Essays’ is an ongoing body of work by photographer Tavish Gunasena. It is a non-linear, non-narrative documentary series that forms a living archive of histories and mythologies centred on Sri Lanka's Southeast Coast.

The exhibition examines the symbiotic relationship between the natural world and societal traditions through land, memory, community, and form. It offers us a conceptual anchor in the notion of an old world breathing beneath the one we know.

Gunasena's work draws attention to coastal communities and the biotopes within which they exist. It attempts to convey a sense of place, one that is richly steeped in myth and history, with forgotten legends living on through endangered oral traditions. Here, the act of photography transcends simple documentation and becomes a form of witnessing, and recording of, ancient continuity.

‘Scrubland’ presents an expansive, local cosmology encompassing the island’s Southeast Coast. In these curated constellations, each subject serves as a lens through which we view Gunasena's iconographic universe. It is a universe that invites reflection on the deep-rooted relationship between the land and its people, the environment, stewardship, and coexistence. Read more

Impermanence

Nelun Harasgama & Preethi Hapuwatte 30 Oct - 15 Nov 2025 Preethi Hapuwatte and Nelun Harasgama's work begins with an observation of life’s constant state of flux.

Its to do with the tensions between present and passing, the fleeting beauty of a moment, the loss embedded in transformation, and the resilience that emerges from change.

Through layered colour, shifting forms, and textures, using the analogy of flowers and leaves, we engage with impermanence, not as something to mourn, but as something to embrace.

It is a visual record of how we move through cycles of becoming and letting go.

In a world that often seeks permanence, we choose to celebrate the beauty of what cannot be held, the style of life that is always becoming, never still. Read more

Side by Side

Kolam - Jaffna 2 - 25 Oct 2025 This exhibition brings together the work of four university-trained contemporary artists who engage with Kolam through both individual and collective practices. Their approach traverses the imagined boundaries between art and craft—challenging conventional distinctions through diverse materials, techniques, and conceptual frameworks.

The art–craft divide is not merely an aesthetic distinction but a deeply political one—shaped by conditions of modernity, colonial legacies, nationalist aspirations, institutional mediations, state and non-state initiatives and ongoing struggles over cultural value and representation. Challenging this binary opens up possibilities for more inclusive and ethically grounded understandings of artistic practice.

By foregrounding the subjectivity of the makers, the exhibition explores how creativity and novelty can simultaneously connect and disrupt established categories. Drawing from both traditional and contemporary cultural vocabularies, the artists layer personal memories and narratives across multiple mediums in playful, experimental ways.

Working across diverse materials and methods—both individually and collectively, for expressive and everyday purposes—the Kolam artists continually seek interconnections, interdependence, and crossovers between imagined categories of art, craft, and design. They transfer knowledge, skills, and sensibilities from one domain to another, cultivating a fluid and reciprocal approach to making.

Through this engagement, they come to understand art and craft not as opposites, but as distinct yet complementary realms of possibility—each offering its own modes of expression, ethics, and aesthetic inquiry. Through this dialogic interplay, Kolam becomes not only a visual motif but a site of inquiry—where aesthetic form, cultural transmission, and embodied knowledge converge.


Curated by T. Shanaathanan

(T.Shanathanan is a visual artist and a Professor of Art History, Department of Fine Arts, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka. He is one of the co-founders of Sri Lankan Archive for Contemporary Art, Architecture and Design in Jaffna and founder of Kolam craft initiative.) Read more

Windows, Screens, Mirrors

Mayun Kaluthanthri 28 Aug - 20 Sep 2025 Windows, screens, mirrors presents a series of works drawn from encounters on public transport. On frequent expressway trips to Colombo, weekly errands in Dickwella from his south coast home, and a recent journey to Jaffna, Kaluthantri explores moments of rest, reflection, and tiredness. Looking toward the fleeting and immediate, toward the tender interiority shared on public transport, these quiet, luminous, oil-on-canvas works emerge from his desire for rest and reverie, which led him to develop his practice away from burnout in Colombo.

Mayun Kaluthantri's practice revolves around the tactile-immediacy of painting, photography, print-making and writing, and their function in embodied-meaning-making. His work is energised most by the tensions of masculinity, class, labour and brownness in the various pockets of his fast-developing homeland, and inevitably, that of the “man-made” against the ecological. Mayun also collaborates through artistic interventions at The Packet and by organising third-spaces, such as Monsoon Blues & Co in Colombo. Since quitting a career in tech 4 years ago, Nilwella - a southern fishing village - has been his home. Read more

Texture Matters

Marie Gnanaraj 14 - 24 Aug 2025 Texture Matters maps a journey by Marie Gnanaraj that suggests the approach of a retrospective, as well as a living studio, which brings together finished works, previous exhibition pieces, fragments, samples and unfinished experiments, as well as reworked weaves that shed a light into the labour and dynamism of weaving as artistic process. Read more

Climate Positive

Creative Catalyst Fellowship 31 Jul - 9 Aug 2025 Climate Positive
Presented by the Creative Catalyst Fellowship

What does it mean to dream of a climate-positive future, especially from an island nation facing ecological fragility and economic flux? Climate Positive is not just an exhibition; it is a convergence. A living, breathing manifestation of what becomes possible when creatives step into their power as catalysts, collaborators, and stewards of transformation.

This exhibition emerges from the Creative Catalyst Fellowship (CCF), launched in June 2024, not simply to support individual artists, but to spark bold, collective inquiry across disciplines. A year ago, ten creative practitioners from across Sri Lanka came together for a two-week deep immersion alongside scientists, conservationists, and systems thinkers. What followed was a seven-month mentorship journey, guiding them through research and refining their creative expressions. The result is a body of work, diverse in form, yet united in spirit, that dares to ask: How might we not only sustain our environment, but regenerate it? And how do we bridge the personal, the socio-economic, and the planetary in the process?

In this space, you will encounter creative expressions shaped not in isolation but through connection, with each other, with ancient forests, with forgotten species, with stories of place, and with the quiet clarity that arises in stillness. You will feel the impact of walking through Kaludiya Pokuna forest with leading biologists, of sitting in dialogue with conservation scientists, of working hands on with communities in unheard parts of the island, and of rediscovering the self through shared vulnerability and curiosity. These experiences, grounded in science, storytelling, and lived emotion, are transmuted into works that invite you to pause, reflect, and perhaps shift, however subtly, in your own orientation to the world.

The Creative Catalyst Fellowship is intentionally not institutionalized because the challenges we face demand more than tradition and the known. We built intersections where silos used to stand, knowing that real, lasting change is born at the crossroads of disciplines, perspectives, and lived experiences. This is where creatives, scientists, and citizens meet, not simply to critique what’s broken, but to unapologetically imagine and actively build the futures we need. We’re not here to preserve the status quo, we’re here to shift it.

As you engage with Climate Positive, we invite you to notice what stirs within.

What connections feel alive? What possibilities begin to emerge?

Because sometimes, the briefest of encounters can change everything.


Randhula de Silva
Program Director | Creative Catalyst Fellowship Read more

Mindscapes: Dreams and Memories

V. Vimal & T. Krishnapriya 3 - 26 Jul 2025 Barefoot Gallery is pleased to present Mindscapes: Dreams and Memories, an exhibition featuring sculptures by V. Vimal and works on paper by T. Krishnapriya.

Vimal subjects his raw material of recycled copper metal to cutting, hammering, and scorching. Krishnapriya’s; embossed drawings and detailed lines on paper.

For both artists, these works bear witness to stories that emerge from subconscious depth. Dreams and memories serve as sites of remembrance and resistance, battling distortion and erasure.
Read more

Mother, Junglefowl & Scarecrow

Pathum Sameera 6 - 28 Jun 2025 The Barefoot Gallery Colombo is pleased to present Mother, Junglefowl and Scarecrow, a solo exhibition by Pathum Sameera. Through his storybook-like illustrations, Sameera (b. 1984, Galle) captures the important role women play in Southern Sri Lanka’s rural agricultural landscape.

Drawing from his own childhood and the pivotal role his mother played in raising him, Sameera explores the shifting dynamics of gender roles triggered by the migration of men in search of labour. He comments on how this in turn has shifted the narrative of the women, particularly mothers, who have stepped into dual roles of “man” and “woman” within the household and community.

Illustrated in charcoal and ink, as well as vibrant acrylics, these works evoke both melancholy and wonder. Through a childlike lens, Sameera honours the resilience of village women, portraying them as everyday heroes who are quietly reshaping the rhythms of rural life.

Read more

A Flower Speaks

Isuru Nirangana 2 - 31 May 2025 In his first solo exhibition in Colombo, Isuru Nirangana invites us to consider the human form not as we see ourselves, but as we might appear to the silent, attentive gaze of a flower.

‘A flower speaks’ presents a series of emotionally charged, abstract works that distort and reconfigure the figure - not to alienate, but to reimagine.

What if a flower, rooted and still, could perceive us?
What would it see in our gestures, our chaos, our beauty?

Using oil pastels, charcoal, acrylic, oil on paper and canvas, Isuru experiments with dissonance and layering, building figures that are fragmented, disfigured and alive with tension.

Eyes multiply, mouths contort, colour pulsates - suggesting a fractured humanity observed from a perspective wholly unlike our own.

This exhibition is less about flowers and more about the unsettling power of being seen by something that expects nothing, yet notices everything. Read more

Sentinels

Edwina Thomson 3 - 25 Apr 2025 Read more

Of Mountains and Men

Bilaal Raji Saheed & Senali Nihara Cooray 20 - 29 Mar 2025 The exhibition brings together the works of painter Bilaal Raji Saheed and ceramicist Senali Nihara Cooray to explore humanity’s shared struggles and aspirations through the enigmatic metaphor “of mountains and men”. In this collaborative dialogue, the artists seek to uncover commonalities amidst multitudes, offering a meditation on the human condition... Read more

Design Migrations

Exploring the origins of design through the work of Channa Daswatte 6 - 16 Mar 2025 Design Migrations explores the origins and evolution of design ideas through five distinct furniture pieces by architect Channa Daswatte in collaboration with MICD Associates. This exhibition traces how inspiration transforms across time, function, and context—how a single idea, rooted in history, culture, or personal discovery, adapts and evolves into new... Read more

Nihal Fernando: Journey and Legacy

Exploring Connections Through Shared Perspectives 30 Jan - 6 Feb 2025 Photographing his island home was the ‘personal odyssey’ of Nihal Fernando (1927-2015), founder Director of Studio Times Pvt Ltd., who used his photographs to spur his countrymen to explore this island in the hope that they would protect all that he treasured. He was also a farmer who believed that... Read more

Theatre of Serendib Birds

Sanath Herath 9 - 26 Jan 2025 Read more

Stories Within Stories

Prasad Hettiarachchi 28 Nov 2024 - 4 Jan 2025 In Stories Within Stories, Prasad Hettiarachchi offers a profound perspective on how minor narratives enrich and challenge grand narratives. By emphasizing the importance of examining these overlooked or marginalized stories, he encourages us to rethink the dominant narratives that often shape collective understanding. His approach underlines how grand narratives derive meaning, direction, and legitimacy from these minor stories, even while frequently overshadowing or silencing them. Read more

Many roads through paradise

Group Exhibition 4 Oct - 2 Nov 2024 Read more

HOUSE

29 Aug - 29 Sep 2024 Barefoot Gallery is excited to present HOUSE— a collection of interior design ideas by the designers at Barefoot. This exhibition showcases the transformative power of design and colour in living spaces. Whether you're seeking inspiration or have a passion for design, HOUSE offers lots of fabulous solutions. Featuring practical and... Read more

Strong Heart Strong Head Strong Emotions

Minal Naomi 1 - 17 Aug 2024 Strong Heart, Strong Head, Strong Emotions is a series that explores the powerful lives of 10 women from Sri Lanka, inspired by the words of Dr. Rajani Thiranagama. The resilience and power of these women encapsulate the very fabric of our society. Ranging from a celebration of creative pursuits, womanhood... Read more

One Artist Many Worlds

Anil Gamini Jayasuriya 11 - 27 Jul 2024 Step into the world of Anil Gamini Jayasuriya, a dynamic artist whose work transcended stylistic conventions to express a deep sense of emotion and curiosity. Presented through the lens of family and friends who had the privilege of knowing Anil, the exhibition offers an intimate look at Anil’s sense of... Read more

Ritualising Mutant Encounters

Chathuri Nissansala 10 Jul - 3 Aug 2024 Taking in the role of an anthropologist Chathuri Nissansala, systematically maps narratives of intergenerational trauma, ethnographic violence and gendered identity. Their work embodies a form of storytelling through objects, installation and performative activations. Through revisiting mythical pasts, old colonized tales, histories of identities as forms of encounters. Under the apprenticeship... Read more

Beneath The Canopy

Karunasiri Wijesinghe 13 Jun - 7 Jul 2024 In Beneath the Canopy, Karunasiri Wijesinghe continues his over 30 year endeavour to represent an aesthetic and spiritual exploration of Sri Lanka’s natural environment. In the works on view, the artist brings a focused gaze on aerial roots in his portraiture of trees – such as the prop roots Banyan... Read more

Homecoming

Amesh Wijesekera 16 May - 9 Jun 2024 Barefoot Gallery is excited to present Amesh Wijesekera’s solo textile art exhibition “Homecoming,” which reflects on his creative design practice through three-dimensional textile art. This body of work serves as a renaissance of Amesh's creative journey showcasing an amalgamation of knit experiments, textile printing, and dyeing methods. Amesh, a young... Read more

BODHI

Channa Ekanayake 18 Apr - 5 May 2024 Read more

Is Waiting Part of The Journey?

Nelun Harasgama 14 Mar - 7 Apr 2024 Nelun Harasgama's exhibition explores to ponder a timeless question: Is waiting an integral part of life's journey? Through a collection of minimalist paintings, each rendered solely in shades of white, the exhibition delves into the depths of anticipation and patience. Viewers are encouraged to reflect on the role of waiting... Read more

Whilst you were sleeping...

Elizabeth Porter 15 Feb - 9 Mar 2024 Whilst you were sleeping, In the safety & certainty of your bed, breath so quiet; soft and sweet. In the deep dark frenetic dreams begin to seep into the plans you have been making for the days ahead; That map, once so clear and organised, becomes fractured and difficult to... Read more

Way of the Forest

Colomboscope 2024 19 - 28 Jan 2024 Read more

From Celtic Land to South Asia

Padrig Morin 15 Dec 2023 - 7 Jan 2024 FROM CELTIC LAND TO SOUTH ASIA recounts the artist Padrig Morin's journey from his native Brittany to Sri Lanka passing by India and the Middle East. Padrig attempts to express through Celtic, Hindu and Middle Eastern designs, the different influences that imprinted on his mind along this journey in a... Read more

Visual Paraphrases

Sarath Chandrajeewa 24 Nov - 10 Dec 2023 I believe Visually Grounded Paraphrases (VGPs) have transformed a single visual concept capable of eliciting diverse emotions. On the visual plane of expression, this is an intuitively uncomplicated juxtaposition of various sensuous forms, shapes, texture, colours and lines. These exercises are a test for my senses and emotions. They implant... Read more

Memory Wall

Chamila Gamage 20 Oct - 12 Nov 2023 'Memory Wall' symbolises a conceptual representation of collective memories tied to significant events. In this case, the 2004 Tsunami, the 30-year Civil War, and the 2019 Economic Crisis in Sri Lanka. Rather than a tangible barricade, this 'Memory Wall' acts as symbolism for commemorating locals’ narratives, and experiences, through art.... Read more

Metamorphosis Papiliones Ceylonensis

Sanath Herath 21 Sep - 15 Oct 2023 Metamorphosis Papiliones Ceylonensis , Sanath Herath’s first solo exhibition, is centered around the metamorphosis of Sri Lankan butterflies. This endeavor celebrates the themes of change and growth. The imagery of a butterfly undergoing metamorphosis encapsulates the idea that profound beauty can emerge from the embrace of change. At its core,... Read more

Studio Collection

Chaminda Gamage 1 - 17 Sep 2023 Chaminda began to show an interest in painting since childhood. From the early 90s he has been recognized as an upcoming force in the art arena. Due to the dedication to his art, he has received numerous awards including State award for the outstanding painter of the year, Ministry of... Read more

Running Rivers: Pilgrims of Place

Kuweni Dias Mendis and Anup Vega 27 Jul - 20 Aug 2023 Read more

Fragmented

Thabendran Krishnapriya 29 Jun - 23 Jul 2023 'As the line breaks free from the page, new relationships between drawing and the physical and social environment emerge. My drawings aim to create a secret recipe for an inner landscape of the human condition: narrative vignettes that are both alluring and mysterious. Nature and the elements existing within it... Read more

Hang a little landscape colour

Barbara Sansoni - A retrospective 28 Apr - 28 May 2023 Read more

Menacing Landscapes

Prasad Hettiarachchi 19 Jan - 18 Feb 2023 Read more

Mycelium

Tamarra Jayasundera 20 Oct - 13 Nov 2022 MYCELIUM
The Reflections of I and I
Mycelium is the network of threads found in fungus that decomposes organic material. It is found all around us and within us, thriving. It has consumed this work, in a giving-receiving sense. Mycelium stands for resilience, while the series marks the expression of the cycle of life, death and rebirth. Regeneration of the soul through its connection to the four elements: earth, wind, fire, water. A healing of four stages. Taking a stand in nature’s impermanence from drowning to breathing under water.
The body of work depicts relationships as reflections of self and the meeting of oneself deeper and stronger. Scraping the surface of psychologist Carl Jung’s self-integration process to act as an alchemist, turning lead to gold within self. A healing dance of hammering, acid throwing, burials in earth, burning, scratching, engraving, and writing. Craving to be raw to the bone; exposed only to express a thing of beauty through authenticity. A release of energy in the hopes of letting go of old trauma cycles and karmic lifetimes for the self and other.
Resilience. Recitation. Resuscitation. Recovery. Rapture. Read more

Hammer and Nails

Anusha Gajaweera 23 Jun - 5 Jul 2022 Anusha’s “Hammer and Nails” centers around the idea of how everyday tools are both instruments of creation while also being weapons of destruction. In his art, these tools oscillate between being utensils that create beautiful, playful shapes with being symbols of unceasing violence that plague our society.
Anusha Gajaweera graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Special), University of Visual & Performing Arts, Colombo in 2008 and Master of Arts, University of Kelaniya in 2012. He has participated in many group exhibitions both locally and internationally including the Jaipur Art Summit India (2017) and Rah Residency in Iran (2019) representing Sri Lankan contemporary artists.

The general theme of his artwork centers around the social, political and institutional power in Sri Lanka, and the struggle in social strata. His previous solo exhibition—(In)complete Flowers, was at the Theertha Red Dot Gallery, Borella in 2021. This is Anusha’s first solo exhibition at Barefoot Gallery Colombo. Read more

Monsters & Mortals

Anoli Perera 26 May - 19 Jun 2022 Who are monsters and mortals? The children disfigured with burns from chemical showers sprayed from the sky; cities and entire generations of people decimated by nuclear bombs; suicide bombing of a church full of people during their Easter Sunday service; invasion and genocide in pursuit of power and creating mass... Read more

George Beven at 90 | Seven Decades of Art

George Beven 23 Aug - 20 Sep 2019 Read more

Walking on water: An exhibition of saris and paintings

Nelun Harasgama 21 Mar - 15 Apr 2019 Read more

The Greedy Forest

Laki Senanayake 30 Aug - 16 Sep 2018 Read more

An Unbelievable Taste

Prasad Hettiarachchi 8 - 18 Oct 2015 'My first exhibition, An unbelievable Taste had the theme of Saaravita venders who are sidelined by the community. I am very sensitive towards downtrodden people in the society and their grievances'. -- Prasad Hettiarachchi Read more

Exhibition of Paintings

Mike Harridge 5 Dec 2013 - 5 Jan 2014 Read more