Shayna Fonseka is a British-Sri Lankan artist working with a range of organic and synthetic materials, from clay, steel, paint, wallpaper, stickers, foliage, and bricks. She holds an MFA from the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University, a BFA from the Slade School of Art and a diploma from Central Saint Martins. Her work examines urban spaces as personal sites of transcendence, exploring how sensory and spatial experiences cultivate a grounded sense of being amid growing instability.
Fonseka’s imagery and materials joyfully scatter like confetti. She crafts playful operations that look up, down, walk, and hold perspectives. These assemblages are discoveries to be stumbled upon, they encourage the viewer to meander, to change position, to kneel intimately to their low-ground level. To echo the gestures she embodies during her wandering walks through the city. These discoveries exist between the architecture of a given space and spaces of placelessness, where we lose our egos to connect with our surroundings.
Works by Fonseka have been shown at SET, London; TOSH, Bournemouth; Old Fire Station, Oxford; Dolphin Gallery, Oxford; Silian Gallery, London; Art Film & Music 2025, Jacqueline du Pré Music, Oxford; Too Cool for School, Online; Exvoto Gallery, Lea Bridge Library, London; Dolphin Gallery, Oxford; Mall Galleries, London (all 2025); Galeria Augustine, Lisbon (2023); Lewisham Art House, London; Asylum Studios, Woodbridge; AMP Gallery, London; Indigo + Madder, London (all 2022); Hastings Contemporary; Avalon Cafe, London (both 2021); GIFCWorldwide, London & New York (2019); Infinite Multiple; Arebyte Gallery; San Mei Gallery (all London, 2018); GX Gallery, London (2017); The Jetty, London (2016); Crypt Gallery, London (2015) and Arlington Rd, London (2014).
Fonseka’s imagery and materials joyfully scatter like confetti. She crafts playful operations that look up, down, walk, and hold perspectives. These assemblages are discoveries to be stumbled upon, they encourage the viewer to meander, to change position, to kneel intimately to their low-ground level. To echo the gestures she embodies during her wandering walks through the city. These discoveries exist between the architecture of a given space and spaces of placelessness, where we lose our egos to connect with our surroundings.
Works by Fonseka have been shown at SET, London; TOSH, Bournemouth; Old Fire Station, Oxford; Dolphin Gallery, Oxford; Silian Gallery, London; Art Film & Music 2025, Jacqueline du Pré Music, Oxford; Too Cool for School, Online; Exvoto Gallery, Lea Bridge Library, London; Dolphin Gallery, Oxford; Mall Galleries, London (all 2025); Galeria Augustine, Lisbon (2023); Lewisham Art House, London; Asylum Studios, Woodbridge; AMP Gallery, London; Indigo + Madder, London (all 2022); Hastings Contemporary; Avalon Cafe, London (both 2021); GIFCWorldwide, London & New York (2019); Infinite Multiple; Arebyte Gallery; San Mei Gallery (all London, 2018); GX Gallery, London (2017); The Jetty, London (2016); Crypt Gallery, London (2015) and Arlington Rd, London (2014).
A Singular Trace That Brings Us Together (2025), giclée german etching paper, mirror, preserved leaves, magnets, paper clips, 90 2.6 x 3.6'. 
TODAY WILL BE A PRODUCTIVE DAY (2025), mild steel and digital print on lining paper, 26 x 22 x 3 cm.
You Are Not Special (2025), oil on linen, 110 x 130 x 4cm.
Routes & Reverie_Wire (2024), digital print on lining paper, satin photo,, woodblock print (hand-carved), 27.7 x 22.6 x 2.6 cm.