Unstable Terrain
โดย ณัฐพล สวัสดี & ศักดิ์สิทธิ์ คุณกิตติ
Nattapon Sawasdee & Saksit Khunkitti
Opening reception: 25th November 2016, 18.00
Exhibition period: 25 November – 25 December 2016
Artist Talk: 8th December 2016, 14.00
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ณัฐพล สวัสดี และ ศักดิ์สิทธิ์ คุณกิตติ ร่วมแสดงผลงานชุดใหม่ที่สำร
ผลงานชุดที่ผ่านมาของณัฐพล มักเป็นการตั้งคำถามต่อเรื่
“ในห้วงเวลาที่ลงมือทำงานจิ
สำหรับณัฐพลแล้ว ความรู้และการตื่นตัวต่อควา
การเลือกวัสดุและรูปทรงในผล
“โดยส่วนมากแล้ว คนเรามักจะคิดว่าสิ่งที่มนุ
ด้วยการใช้รูปร่างของสภาพเม
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ณัฐพล สวัสดี เป็นศิลปินและนักดนตรี เขาเชื่อในการใช้ศาสตร์ที่ห
ศักดิ์สิทธิ์ คุณกิตติ เป็นศิลปินที่สนใจเกี่ยวกับ
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Nuttapon Sawasdee and Saksit Khunkitti present new works exploring the concept of ‘stability’ through the shared language of abstraction. Using contrasting materials and forms, Saksit’s work featuring ‘heavy’ construction materials and architectural surfaces, with Nuttapon utilizing ‘light’ materials and fragile structures, the artists explore similar themes using different visual rhetoric. Together, they contemplate our desire for stability as well as the struggles, rejection, and acceptance of new possibilities that result from instability.
For Nattapon, whose recent works have questioned historical narratives and socio-political norms, the works presented in this exhibition represent an attempt to go back to the beginning of his artistic practice- of painting as a mean of expressing the inner ‘self’.
“In the process of painting these works, I try to forget the world outside and focus only on the paint and brush that lie before of me. Like going back to the time when I first became interested in art, when I did not care much about the world around me. I remember when my parents took me to my university entrance examination and I hadn’t realized that I had to do a drawing exam. I hadn’t prepared for it but I just did it, not caring how it was going to turn out. I had a lot of fun. Now I long for that kind of careless enjoyment. I just want to forget what I have learned since then, to produce something and not care; Punk style.”
For him then, the knowledge and awareness of the world around him have in some ways become a burden. The question here is whether one can completely let go of such a burden and go back to being their past self. The answer is no, not completely, but this desire is only a natural reaction to living in an unstable world. And while it may seem like a naïve desire, one can argue that such a conscious abandonment of structure, in this case socio-political constructs, in search of the self, though that identity has undeniably become altered, can reveal a more authentic and expressive reflection of a person’s present lived experience.
Saksit expresses the uncertainty of being through the metaphor of order and structure found in man-made urban environments and construction materials, such as cement, concreate blocks, and glass. The materials that he uses reflect the industrial development and processes of standardization required in their production, as well as the ways that these materials are used in creating standardized environments. Additionally, they also represent human’s ability to overcome nature and create environments that are supposedly suitable for our needs and aspirations.
“Often, we think of the man-made structures and environments that surround us as permanent, as things that are durable, stable, and that cannot be easily altered.
But in reality, they are constantly changing whether through planning, organic development, or natural factors.”
By using the aesthetic of urban decay, layering materials and structures, Saksit is attempting to remind the viewers of the impermanent nature of our built environments, and by extension, the social structures that create them. He demonstrates this through visual references to urban cartography, which is linked to the practice of urban planning, a kind of imagined structure that may or may not be applied to the physical world. His works question the idea of ‘structure’ as wel as the concepts of order and stability. What do we think of the structure (or lack thereof) that we live in? And what kind of structure (if any) would we like for the future?
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Nuttapon Sawasdee is a visual and sound artist based in Bangkok. He believes in a multi-disciplinary approach to art, and that artists should work with other forces in society to engender change. Using a variety of media, such as painting, photography, and sound, he creates works that reflect contemporary socio-political developments and challenge established narratives and norms.
Saksit Khunkitti is a Bangkok based artist. His practice deals with the aesthetic, social, and spatial experiences of everyday life and the ways in which they are manifested effectively. He attempts to find points of convergence among a diverse range of subjectivities by exploring different dichotomies, such as those between idealism/pragmatism, modernism/post-modernism, conscious/unconscious, and order/chaos, among others