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Meet the Thai pop surrealists shaking up the country’s art scene 

Phannapast "Yoon" Taychamaythakool Gucci

Creative City

Thailand’s contemporary artists are producing works that may be playful and cute, but they’re more than meets the eye

August 8, 2022

Text: Vincent Vichit-Vadakan

2 min read

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Thai pop art is having something of a moment with plenty of exposure at home and abroad. Graffiti street artist Alex Face’s three-eyed, rabbit-onesie-clad babies are recognizable pop icons with a message, while Gongkan has had a series of high-profile collaborations — among them, with a musician, a supermarket and a camera maker — that featured his deceptively naive characters. 

But they aren’t the only artists who are making a splash around the world. Here are some names to look out for. 

Yuree Kensaku with her installation at this year’s Hawaii Triennale Yuree Kensaku

Yuree Kensaku, who is half-Thai and half-Japanese, is no newcomer to the art world. A regular feature in galleries around Bangkok, Kensaku’s cartoonish yet sinister works have also been showcased in exhibitions from Taipei to Moscow. Kensaku’s artwork now hangs in the permanent collections of museums in Yokohama, Singapore and in the MAIIAM in Chiang Mai. A work like Bleu Blanc Rouge draws on her time as an artist in residence in France, depicting a cat as a gussied up Marie-Antoinette character surrounded by floating baguettes and as a black artist character wielding a paintbrush who might just be a let-them-eat-cake downtrodden soul.

Andy Chongthanapipat, the artist known as MRKREME
Figurines by MRKREME

Varagun “Andy” Chongthanapipat, the artist who goes by MRKREME – and who has a master’s degree in Industrial Design from the Pratt Institute in New York – follows a tradition of uber-creatives who lend their wild imaginings to a wide variety of pursuits and across creative genres. One of his series features monsters who all have elaborate backstories and inhabit his Kooky World. Each monster comes from its own ecosystem, and their interactions with each other form the narrative arc of the series. From a mushroom thief to a toy glutton, viewers can follow their adventures as MRKREME makes these characters available on everything from postcards to figurines. MRKREME’s own distinctive tag is also on his fashion line. 

 

The Gucci Art Lab featuring Yoon Taychamaythakool’s art Gucci

Phannapast “Yoon” Taychamaythakool is nothing if not bold – think intricate Chinese porcelain meets Audubon meets animé meets Gucci. In the case of the luxury fashion house, that meeting was quite literal, including several specially commissioned projects and collaborations with the brand. From glass panelling to rattan sculptures, everything about Yoon’s work is theatrical and flamboyant, tinged with a subtext of gender politics. 

 

Aof Smith’s “Unexpected Mission”, part of a recent show at Thinkspace Projects in Los Angeles Aof Smith

Another artist who is making waves abroad is Aof Smith. Furry, his bulldog/rabbit, has traveled the world and, like Furry, his other subjects walk a fine line between cuddly and downright disturbing. The feel is seventies sci-fi mixed with both psychedelic and surrealist pop art. He may call his art low-brow, but the amount of detail in the painterly compositions proves that it is anything but. 

For Thai audiences, Udom “Note” Taepanich needs no introduction. Arguably Thailand’s best-known stand-up comedian, Note is also an accomplished visual artist. His latest show earlier this year at River City Bangkok entitled I Need a Life Coach used whimsical figures in both painting and sculpture to ask questions about the loss of innocence and just what it is that we want to be when we grow up. Clearly that’s a question the painter, the sculptor and the comic have been asking themselves. 

For more of these artists’ works, check out these galleries and art spaces in Thailand: River City Bangkok, SAC Gallery, Bangkok CityCity Gallery, MOCA and MAIIAM. 

 

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