Dasha Buben from Belarus and Thilini Jinadasa from Sri Lanka come together in a show that emerges from a confluence of sensibilities that, while distinct in geography and experience, speak to one another with uncommon clarity.

A new art show that is a nod to colour and how it intersperses with memory and nostalgia is now open at Delhi’s Gallery Pristine Contemporary. The show uses colour as a metaphor and showcases how each hue holds memory, tension, and feeling, balancing chaos and control while revealing inner experience through its very mystery. Arjun Sawhney, co-founder of Gallery Pristine Contemporary, explains, “As recollections shift, distort, or dissolve over time, they nevertheless shape identity, carrying emotional truths even when their factual roots are uncertain. In the two artists' respective practices, these fleeting, often unverifiable moments, such as childhood flashes of violet flowers, drifting clouds, or the first shock of pink, reappear through abstraction, where colour becomes a vessel for what cannot be spoken. What Memory Built in Colour invites art aficionados into this space where memory and pigment intertwine, asking them to sense rather than verify, and to encounter the secret architectures that colour quietly keeps.”

Being Born, 2025-55, 40 x 40 in, oil on canvas – Dasha Buben_artwork

Dasha Buben from Belarus brings to her practice a sensibility shaped by displacement, activism, and an unflinching engagement with the private realms of emotion and the body. Now based in Berlin, Buben continues to explore neurodivergency, mental health, and the migratory experience, her work marked by a rare intimacy that bridges personal testimony and universal fragility. Her recent exhibitions testify to a practice that is as courageous as it is contemplative, shaped by a life lived at the intersection of resistance and renewal.

Thilini Jinadasa from Sri Lanka brings to abstraction a sensibility shaped by introspection, nature, and the quiet authority of colour. Though trained in design and seasoned in the digital realm, her true métier lies in painting, a private sanctuary that has accompanied her throughout her life. Jinadasa’s works unfold as meditative terrains where memory, emotion, and the natural world intermingle, their layered surfaces echoing organic movement and the shifting hues of the earth.

Thilini Jinadasa Serenity I (2025), 31 Inches x 31 Inches, Oil Stick and Acrylic on Canvas

Both artists root their practices in the chromatic residue of memory – Dasha Buben in the yellows of her grandmother’s sunflowers and the tender pinks of a Belarusian dusk, and Thilini Jinadasa in the earthen tones and verdant hues of her Sri Lankan homeland. Their palettes, shaped by landscapes as divergent as the grey, troubled skies of Eastern Europe and the humid, colour-saturated tropics of the Indian Ocean, carry within them narratives of place, identity, and transformation. “It is precisely this contrast of climate, culture, and political circumstance that lends their dialogue its richness. Together, their works form a conversation in colour, where the tensions and harmonies between their worlds deepen our understanding of how memory, emotion, and environment intertwine,” says Arjun Butani, co-founder of Gallery Pristine Contemporary.

Thilini Jinadasa Unknown Ending III, Medium, Acrylic on canvas

Abstraction, such as in Thilini’s works, mirrors this fluidity, offering a space where impressions rather than narratives take precedence. Colour, such as that used by Dasha, in this context, becomes the mediator between inner experience and outward form: a hue can hold the warmth of a childhood afternoon, the ache of loss, or the quiet clarity of reflection without ever naming them. In its silence, colour grants permission to feel rather than define, allowing emotion to settle into shape through gesture, texture, and tone. Artist Thilini Jinadasa says, “In my practice, colour is far more than a visual choice; it is the vessel through which my memories, emotions, and abstract language come together. I work intuitively rather than representationally, allowing colour to become the bridge between my inner world and the surface of the canvas. The colours I gravitate toward carry my sensory connection to Sri Lanka. Earthy yellows remind me of temple flags and sunlit fields; deep reds hold the weight of tradition and ancestral warmth; monsoon blues and muted violets come from the quiet moods of the island. I don’t use these colours to depict specific places, but to express the emotional traces they’ve left within me. Each hue becomes a fragment of lived experience.”

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Even when memory feels abstract or unreal, it brings very real emotions. Artist Dasha Buben avers, “Memory is a strange substance. It shifts all the time, reshaping itself, and most of the time, it isn’t even trustworthy. Early childhood memories feel especially mysterious; you never fully know if they really happened or if they were just dreams that stayed with you. But even in their uncertainty, these memories shape who we are at the core. In my practice, I “code” these emotions through colour to relive them. Colour becomes a transmitter, carrying the feeling I want to share with the viewer, something that exists beyond words, somewhere between recollection and imagination.”

• What: What Memory Built in Colour.




• Who: Dasha Buben (Vivid Memories of Things That Never Happened to Me) and Thilini Jinadasa (The Secret of Hues).




• When: Saturday, 8th November – Wednesday, 24th December 2025.




• Where: Gallery Pristine Contemporary, A-178, C3 Ground Floor, Saini Bhavan, Bhishma Pitamah Marg, New Delhi-110003.




• Timings: 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM; open Monday to Saturday.