Nova Contemporary, an art gallery on Bangkok’s Ratchadamri Road, celebrates its first anniversary with “A New Interpretation of the Paradoxical World”, a solo show by Narissara Pianwimungsa.
Continuing until May 31, this is Narissara’s first solo exhibition in six years and expresses her notions of people and the world in embroidery without outline patterns. The 44-year-old artist uses such animal forms as wolves, deer and rabbits to represent the feeling of loneliness in the age of technology, while the embroidery, an original technique dating back before the Industrial Revolution, decorates painted canvas to heal and remind people of feelings they may have forgotten.
Narissara, an art graduate of Silpakorn University, is known for her figurative paintings of a mysterious lady with big eyes, which appeared in Yuthlert Sippapak’s 2003 drama “February”. After a great personal loss, she stopped painting for many years until recently, when she found a way of creating art that expressed her thoughts and feelings.
“I am interested in people and thoughts in the current context. We live in an information technology era and have an unceasing flow of massive information at our fingertips. Despite this, perplexity, desolation and unhappiness underpin our thoughts and seep through the holes in our hearts. This feeling is complicated and hard to explain so I wanted to find a technique that could convey and explain my feelings,” she says.
“I found that embroidery, which is an original technique dating back to before the Industrial Revolution, seems to heal and remind people of these feelings and it also helps us to build our paradoxical world. I express my work through animal forms as I don’t want to represent any specific individual. Humans and animals have had a long history and they are embedded in our subconscious,” says the artist who last year was given the 15th Silpa Bhirasri Creativity Grant by her alma mater Silpakorn University.
The gallery is on Rajdamri Road (BTS: Ratchadamri) and opens Tuesday to Sunday, from 11am to 7pm. For details, call (090) 910 6863 or visit www.NovaContemporary.com.