She was deemed as a bright student in studies and was rewarded for her efforts by bagging the Ingram Shield which was the most coveted distinction in her school's curriculum and she was notably the first recipient of the award.
[7] De Silva studied art in her youth however her artistic career began, after she and her husband approached Geoffrey Bawa in 1960 to design a house for them in Colombo.
[3] Following her husband's death she spent two years as a Commonwealth consultant on handicrafts to the British Virgin Islands,[3][8] upon her return she moved back to her ancestral home in Aluwihare in 1982.
[3] She converted her father's home in Matale into a heritage centre in 1980s where she taught various disciplines such as carpentry, needlework, brass foundry, batik production.
[2] She was also highly acclaimed and well respected in the arts fraternity for imparting and sharing knowledge and wealth of experience to many young women with whom she worked with during her lifetime.