Kasturi Kiritharan (b. 1998, London, England) is interested in the blurring of the real and imagined, and how the act of recollection can tip memory into fiction.

Using thin washes of oil paint, scratching into the surface, sanding back, staining, re-layering, Kasturi aims to mimic the fluidity of memory, where edges blur and details shift. Her process-led approach encourages her to stay open and speculative, allowing everyday images recorded in her sketchbook or camera roll – from moths and horses, to brick structures and rocky beaches – to re-emerge through the material possibilities of paint and surface.

The artist also draws on the work of past painters she deeply admires, integrating studies of their work into her own, transforming these influences into something distinctly personal and intuitive as she paints over them. As a result of these layered ways of working, echoes of the past come to the surface, her paintings richer in meaning and feeling.

Kasturi received her BA in English Literature in 2020 and completed the Year Long Painting Course at Leith School of Art in 2024.