Creative Concepts

Looking back over my career as an artist, I realize that when I was starting out as a printmaker, I relied in some instances on experimentation to generate the ideas that informed my works. Concepts, forms and techniques were all outgrowths of a process of trial and error. In other instances, however, the works were concept-driven. By comparing and analyzing the different approaches, I came up with new concepts and forms. My prints, in general, tend to consist of a small number of abstract forms, mostly either geometric or organic, and the effect of many of my works depends on the interplay of these two basic forms. Over the years, the number, size and proportion of organic and geometric forms have changed. The earlier works show a preference for organic over geometric forms, but there are geometric forms concealed within the organic forms. In the later works, geometric forms dominate. This particular evolution reflects the way in which material objects, which I associate with geometric form, gradually came to overshadow subjective, emotional concerns, represented by organic forms.

Once I switched from printmaking to mixed media art, my work tended to take on the qualities of mixed media painting. In fact, I had started to explore this particular type of art back in 1978, when I was making my first prints. This is why my early mixed media works, like my prints, feature a blending of geometric and organic forms. They also incorporate pieces of old metal etching plates used in printmaking. I continued to work in this vein up until ten years ago, when I decided to devote myself exclusively to mixed media art. But even so, I have continued to rely on the same analytical technique of juxtaposing geometric and organic forms as a means of solving problems and clarifying the meaning of my work.

Having been born and raised in Bangkok, an urban environment, elements of the material world, consumerism and modern technology have had an impact on my life and become an integral part of my everyday routine. I have been shaped by my experience of struggling in a modern urban society, and this experience has inspired the concepts that inform my work. The tension between materialism and spirituality, the concrete and the subjective, a theme derived from my experiences of life in Bangkok, has been the subject of my work from the very beginning. This theme is colored by my own distinct personality and by my love of simplicity and reflection. My art has always been a record of my life experiences, reflecting the environment in which I live and my love of nature. Another key influence on my life and my work as an artist is Buddhism. Buddhism has taught me how to live; it has taught me the difference between right and wrong, and it has shown me the importance of detachment and letting go. My Buddhist faith has led me along a solitary path to purity. From all of these influences, I have distilled the essence of my experiences to find artistic inspiration. As a result, I have adopted a simple, uncluttered abstract style with the fewest number of forms necessary to convey my concepts.

For over twenty years I used my experiences as the basis for prints. Once I had exhausted the possibilities of the printmaking medium, I turned to mixed media art, through which I felt I could express the changes in my ways of thinking and feeling. But from the very start of my career, whether I was making prints, watercolors or mixed media art, my work has been an abstract dialogue between geometric forms, which represent the world of objects, logic and scientific law, and organic forms, symbols of life, subjectivity, and emotion. In some of the phases of my career, geometric forms have had the upper hand, while at other times, organic forms have tended to dominate. Overall, the fluctuation between varying forms points to an attempt to achieve a balanced outlook on life. It is an attempt that all of us must make, for if one side overpowers the other, we forfeit the possibility of a happy life.