Thaiwijit Puengkasemsomboon

b.1959 in Patani Province, lives and works in Chiang Mai 

Thaiwijit Puengkasemsomboon arrived in Bangkok to attend Silpakorn University and soon after he graduated in 1984, his abstract paintings were well received earning a solo exhibition at Bangkok’s National Gallery. Puengkasemsomboon’s layers of colors, lines and forms that were inspired by Rothko, Pollock and de Kooning were freshly alive. However, he did not stop there. ForPuengkasemsomboon, art was something without borders. Much closer to Tao or Zenthat connects to everyday experience. Not settling into one style or medium, Puengkasemsomboon has started to integrate found objects in his works, finding beauty in everyday objects. He would talk to junk truckers to spare him some steel remains, picks up branches and driftwood, plastics and glasses. With them, he improvises. The combinations of colors, shapes, and textures of found materials initiate Thaiwijit’s artwork. He creates not only paintings but sculptures and functional objects such as vases, stools, lamps. When visiting Thaiwijit’s studio and adjoining home, the whole environment is his artwork. We are reminded traditionally the art and life are not separated in eastern life. All the dualistic lines, such as private and public, life and death, abstract and representational, becomes meaningless in Puengkasemsomboon’s work. All leads to nothingness or becomes one, with nature, self, others, everything around us. At the booth we would like to present his new plant pots as well as a small sculpture one can use as a stool.