‘Trauma and Care’ – BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY

BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY

Sep 18 - Oct 31, 2021

^{All images courtesy of BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY}

Amidst the mire of the COVID-19 pandemic, Trauma and Care breaks the seclusion of quarantine through a group presentation featuring 9 Thai artists that BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY has engaged with extensively. As a physical exhibition that simultaneously manifests online in the form of the gallery’s first Online Viewing Room presentation, both the exhibition’s format and title are reflective of the current global circumstances and urgencies. 

Trauma and Care showcases a selection of artworks created within the past two years. The recency of the works’ creation reaffirming their relationship to the zeitgeist of the period. As protests precipitated by the lagging COVID-19 response continue to occupy the streets and remain a mainstay in media reporting, the associated trauma is experienced repeatedly both first-hand and vicariously by artist and layperson alike. Consequently, the range of materials and imageries employed in the creation of these artworks reflect the urban atmosphere, giving further emphasis to the relationships existing between them, the city, and its inhabitants. 

An exhibitionary response to this scenario is emblematic of the potential for art as an avenue for catharsis and expressions of solidarity and concern. It emerges as a means of igniting conversations that speculate the way forward. Displaying these artworks in close proximity to each other within the gallery space, their placements catalyse dialogues between different artistic practices as well. In spanning a breadth of artistic responses – from nihilism to optimism, satire to serenity – the relevance of these artworks exceeds national boundaries, touching on the fundamental human need to process injury and begin the healing process.  

About the Artists

KORAKRIT ARUNANONDCHAI
　b. 1986, Bangkok, Thailand
　Lives in New York, USA. Works in New York and Bangkok

A visual artist, filmmaker and storyteller, Korakrit Arunanondchai employs his versatile practice to tell stories embedded in cultural transplantation and hybridity. His body of work merges fiction with poetry and offers synesthetic experiences engaged in a multitude of subjects primarily based on lives of family, friends, and colleagues as much as local myths. Surpassing a solitary artist, Arunanondchai is an avid collaborator who has worked on videos, performances and music together with an extensive list of people.
Arunanondchai’s first video in a series of work, 2012–2555 (2012), arose from the ideas of death, rebirth and the fictionalization of time and was shown at MoMA PS1 in New York (2014). Together with Arunanondchai’s twin brother Korapat Arunanondchai, the performance artist, boychild and artist Alex Gvojic, they produce a live performance to accompany the video installation as part of the Sunday Sessions at MoMA PS1. In 2015, He exhibited Painting with history in a room filled with people with funny names 3 at Palais de Tokyo, Paris and in 2016 exhibited as Arunanondchai’s first solo show at BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY.
In early 2018, Arunanondchai co-founded Ghost Foundation, a non-profit organization aimed to support a video and performance art series in Thailand entitled Ghost. He curated its inaugural series, Ghost:2561, during October 11-28, 2018 in Bangkok.

ORAWAN ARUNRAK
　b. 1985, Bangkok, Thailand
　Lives and works in Bangkok and Berlin, Germany
 
Orawan Arunrak’s work is largely inspired by her everyday life. Using tools like pencils, pens, paper, but also photography and the internet, she creates works that take the forms of drawing, painting and installation. Her practice is aimed at engaging in dialogue with local inhabitants in an attempt to merge the space of art and non-art. Repeatedly crossing national, cultural and spiritual borders, Arunrak’s work has examined likeness and difference within and between varied locations in both Asia and Europe where she has lived in recent years, and based on relationships she has with these places.

DUSADEE HUNTRAKUL
　b. 1978, Bangkok, Thailand
　Lives and works in Bangkok
 
An artist with his deep-rooted imagination and yearning for an interconnected carriageway to souls. In 1998, the first time Huntrakul saw his late brother bring home fired funky ceramic pots that he made at a community college’s pottery class in USA, that was when something profound moved inside of him. Huntrakul started working with clay himself almost twenty years ago at his uncle’s ceramic studio in Bangkok. Many schools and different lives later, he still uses fired clay, language and other materials to compose space that is familiar yet unknown. Between teaching and raising a child, he keeps a modest studio practice around Phrakanong area in Bangkok, Thailand. Dusadee Huntrakul is set to participate in Singapore Biennale Every Step In The Right Direction in November 2019.

NAWIN NUTHONG
　b. 1993, Bangkok, Thailand
　Lives and works in Bangkok
 
Nawin Nuthong is a Thai contemporary artist and curator exploring the connections between history and cultural media through a wide range of mediums. Melding myths and legends with pop-cultural references from video games, comics, and film, he examines the role technology has to play in reconfiguring the learning and understanding of history. He is a graduate from King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang with a major in film studies and digital media. In addition to his art practice, exhibitions he has curated include PLATOEXPECTONUM (2017), This nor Mundane, The Mystery Shack 999 (2018), as well as MAPPA (2019). Nuthong is also presently one of the managing members of Bangkok’s iconic independent art space, Speedy Grandma.

TAE PARVIT
　b. 1993, Bangkok, Thailand
　Lives and works in Bangkok
 
Tae Parvit expresses abstractions of reality through a myriad of means. Though practicing predominantly as a painter, his creative output has spanned the genres of animation, digital drawings, screen-printing, publication, music, performance, and to a lesser extent, mural painting as well. It is therefore unsurprising to find his paintings inflected with the characteristics of these varied genres, bearing nuanced traits of movement, textures, and narratives. Even though taking inspiration from personal experiences and the world around him, his works transcend merely being auto-biographical chronicles. Rather, he draws viewers into realms of colors that meld images, times, and stories in melodious harmony and counterpoint.
Although possessing limited formal training in the painterly tradition having graduated as a student of graphic design from the Swinburne University of Technology (Melbourne, Australia), Tae’s works demonstrate his masterful self-taught approach in the use of colors, scale, and composition to express particular moods and feelings. Regardless of whether painting spontaneously or following from his preparatory sketches, his completed paintings exude an energetic flood of consciousness that coalesce connections from the wellspring of the subconscious. And even across the other genres that constitute the entirety of his artistic practice, this palpable sense of energy has come to be a defining element – drawing audiences into a multi-sensorial environment generative of communal spirit and fellowship.
Following his graduation, Tae Parvit has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions in both Thailand and abroad, including two solo exhibitions and one special project at Bangkok CityCity Gallery as of 2020. In addition, under the auspices of ‘Interesting Pictures’ – a self-publishing collective he co-founded – he has also produced numerous publications and artist books. His practice is represented in private collections around the world.

MITI RUANGKRITYA
　b. 1981, Bangkok, Thailand
　Lives and works in Bangkok
 
A nobility of beauty can provoke a disturbing reality, Ruangkritya’s work has proven its capacity when audiences are put in the middle of beautiful ordeal. Raised in the UK, and returned to Bangkok in 2010, the artist noticed the city’s increasing urbanization and started documenting its rapid changes. He has produced immaculate photography focusing on the urban city, its development, and impact. A subtle sarcasm has also informed his commentary work on politics.
 
Notable works from Ruangkritya includes Imagining Flood (2012) and Thai Politics (2006- ongoing), both of which have been shown in international exhibitions and festivals. In 2014, Ruangkritya started working on Dream Property, an on-going project that examines the nature of property development and its relationship to the city. In 2016 he was selected as one of the finalists of the Sovereign Art Prize.

CHULAYARNNON SIRIPHOL
　b. 1986, Bangkok, Thailand
　Lives and works in Bangkok
 
Chulayarnnon Siriphol is interested in exploring new possibilities in creating moving images. He is thus working between the role of a filmmaker and an artist, using video as a medium. His works range from short film, experimental film, documentary to video installation which are in–between personal memory and social memory, documentary and fiction, reality and supernatural.

TANAT TEERADAKORN
　b. 1991, Bangkok, Thailand
　Lives and works in Bangkok
 
Tanat Teeradakorn interested in how to put into relation human beings, space, actions and data. His love in music and sounds provide him a strong base in his practice where sounds are usually his main medium. While working as a graphic designer, he also works on self-initiated projects, looking into today’s cultural production. His personal research is transformed into, for instance, publication (Displacement, 2016) online media (Dance Non-Stop Mix, 2015-ongoing) and live performance/exhibition (Dance Non-Stop Mix at Cartel Artspace, 2017). Teeradakorn is currently doing his personal studies on sound and visual culture which inspires him to develop interdisciplinary works by experimenting through various processes with media, digital information, time, spatial conditions, globalization, politics, economics and contemporary technology are among his main subjects of interest.

DHANUT TUNGSUWAN
　b. 1994, Bangkok, Thailand
　Lives and works in Bangkok and London, UK
 
Dhanut has an incessant love for science-fiction films with a distinctive atmosphere and escapade engrossing him while watching such a form of art. The experience manifests in his anecdotal paintings which may recall sunken memories. Dhanut’s subject matter is also drawn from his life in the era of over-saturated information which he acquired sources in making his paintings. The outcome is a juxtaposition of familiar and outlandish images traversing times and spaces.