Exhibitions
Kathmandu Photo Gallery
Nov 03 - Dec 26, 2020
All images by Courtesy of Kathmandu Photo Gallery
Life in the concrete jungle robs people of their innate connection to the forest. In ‘Looking at the Forest’ Manit Sriwanichpoom sets out to convey the quiet terror he feels in close confrontation with nature by keeping the focus fixed at just one metre and fully opening the aperture to record blurry, dreamlike images. It is unclear what the photographer sees, adrift in the forest’s aura in a state of formlessness, indescrible and enigmatic, manifesting in beauty and a hushed silence.
There is no landscape, no sense of the lovely view whatsoever. What is he looking at? What does he want us to see?
Manit: “I want to capture that feeling, when we enter the forest and can sense that something else. It’s not just trees. It’s an experience of the aura of that dimension, that abstract quality of the light and shadow invoking the inexpressible, eerie and unfathomable.”
Photo-artist Manit Sriwanichpoom has been creating and exhibiting work of Thai contemporary art for over 30 years. His work has been widely exhibited both in Thailand and internationally, forming part of many of the world’s important museum and private collections. ‘Looking at the Forest’ was produced when Manit visited a number of forests from the north of Thailand to Korea, Japan, Australia, France and Spain between 2009 – 2014.
Manit Sriwanichpoom (b 1961) is one of Thailand’s leading photo artists, and the best known in the international art world, having exhibited worldwide including in the Kasseler Kunstverein (Germany, 2018), Saatchi Gallery (London, 2015), RAY Fotografieprojekte (Frankfurt, 2012), the Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2010), the Asia Pacific Triennial (Australia, 2009), Photoquai (Paris, 2007), Gwangju Biennale (Korea, 2006) and the Venice Biennale (2003). His works are collected by important museums including in the Maison Europeenne de la Photographie (Paris), DZ Bank (Germany), Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (USA), Smith College Museum of Art (USA), Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (Japan), Queensland Art Gallery (Australia), National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery Singapore, Singapore Art Museum and well known private collectors. In 2007 he was awarded the Higashikawa Overseas Photographer Prize from Japan and 2014 the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres by French Ministry of Culture. In 2020 his ‘Bangkok in Technicolor’ book won the Photo City Sagamihara Award from Japan.
