Gallery Pristine Contemporary is opening “What Memory Built in Colour” this Saturday, a two-person exhibition that pairs the work of Berlin-based Belarusian artist Dasha Buben with Sri Lankan contemporary artist Thilini Jinadasa. Running from November 8 through December 24, 2025, the show examines how memory and emotion take shape through abstract painting and the deliberate use of color.
Both artists are working with abstraction, but their approaches reveal different preoccupations. Buben’s series, “Vivid Memories of Things That Never Happened to Me,” comprises 19 works that investigate the fluid and often unreliable nature of recollection. Her layered compositions explore how memory alters, overlaps, and dissolves over time, translating fleeting impressions and imagined moments into visual meditations on identity and perception. One featured work, “I Can Feel the Colour,” is an oil on canvas measuring 100 x 80 cm.
Jinadasa’s 12-work series, “The Secret of Hues,” treats color as both a communicative tool and an enigma. Working with mixed media, oil stick and acrylic on canvas, she creates compositions that balance spontaneity with control. Her piece “Serenity,” measuring 31×31 inches, exemplifies this approach, constructing spaces that carry emotional weight without relying on representational imagery or language.
What makes the pairing work is the tension between their methods. Buben’s vivid tones and layered surfaces suggest the slippery nature of memory, as it accumulates and distorts over time. Jinadasa’s controlled yet spontaneous compositions explore color as a form of emotional language, one that operates on instinct rather than logic, bypassing the need for words or narrative structure. Together, their work reflects on how recollection and imagination converge through abstraction, where color becomes a medium of reflection and feeling.
The exhibition will be open Monday through Saturday from 10:30 AM to 6:00 PM at Gallery Pristine Contemporary, New Delhi. Running for more than six weeks, it offers time to reflect on how two artists from different worlds use colour and abstraction to map the terrain of memory and emotion. It unfolds as a thoughtful exchange between two distinct practices—one that invites viewers to pause, feel, and see what colour can convey when words and representation fall short.
