Tadu Contemporary Art proudly presents
“Being Sand”, a mixed media and installation
project by Amrit Chusuwan, artist and
art lecturer of Silpakorn University, Bangkok. Being Sand is Chusuwan’s
first solo show in Thailand after a numbers of international group shows
in Thailand and abroad. His recent major group exhibition partivipation
is “Silapa Buddha” at the Queen’s Gallery which focus on interpretations
of Buddhist philosophy in the modern world.
Born in 1956 in
Nakhon Si Thammarat, South of Thailand, Chusuwan studied painting at
Silpakorn University and pursued his master degree and artist career
in Poland in 1980s.
He had his first solo show in Poland in 1989. Shusuwan was among pioneering
artists in Thailand in the late 80s who experimented on conceptual painting
that sought apart from canvas and colours other mediums to convey chance
and possibility of relations between different objects. His series of
project in the 80s that featured a number of plastic bags filled with
different colour liquid laid and scattered on beaches by ocean waves
has earned him recognition among those Thai artists who started exploring
on new media and subsequently led to the development of installation
art in Thailand. From the 1990s, Chusuwan has been working largely on
video installations. They mostly question Thai perception of being Buddhists
where some daily acts ironically contradict with religion beliefs.
In this Being Sand, Chusuwan turns Tadu’s gallery space into a cosmic
ground of sand.
The setting and images shown on the wall and the ground are his interpretation
and understanding of Buddhism. The sand is the artist’s mind. The ground
is a platform where his memory from childhood relating to his association
with Thai Buddhism is kept alive.
Tracing back along the memory lane, he recalls his reading of two
books; one entitled
Buddha Dharma by two highly-respectable Thai monks, the late Buddhadhas
and Payut Payuto and the other by chinese author, Huang Po. The artist
quoted the first book as to contemplate on the meaning of void in Buddhism.
It wrote, “…take a look at the sand, it is not flattered even when the
great king steps his feet on it. It does not disgust even when cattle,
buffaloes or dogs dispose their waste on it.” To him, the sand no self
but does exist in the cosmos. Life is composed of different things that
are inseparable.
It is like a car that has motor, wheels, engine, tires and patrol. Without
one feature, it may not be able to run. The composition of life is likewise.
Through Being Sand, Chusuwan invites us to step on the ground of sand
as to contemplate on the composition of our life and how things are
related.