About a decade ago three artists, Somchai Charoen, Yiwon Park and Phaptawan Suwannakudt arrived at different times in different circumstances unknown to each other and decided to stay in the migrant society name ‘Sydney’. They were from different backgrounds and generations and each ordinary day in Sydney is always a journey which is notwithstanding trapped in their own memories and anguish in their lives. This exhibition explores each artist and their practices through the journey in the stillness of each ordinary day in Sydney.
Somchai Charoen
"Sala is considered as a Symbol for many aspects and characteristics of Thai social life where ideas are debated, expressed and sharped, relationships are built and celebrations shared.My messages and vision of the sala is as spiritual space- a place for contemplation, healing and peace."
Yiwon Park
‘My art practice materializes the process of exploring individual and shared insecurities. The concept of the ‘unknown familiar’ is a method to explore subjective image making within both the individual sensitivity and the collective unconscious. Autobiographical narratives are explored through personal symbols in drawing, painting, sculpture and installation. I consider myself as a subject matter and also a medium to engage with various realms of reality. Metaphoric tales through both personal and archetypal symbols explore the feelings of insecurity in otherness and between-ness. Creating alter egos by disguising my personal symbols is my own rite to ‘discovering my own myths’ in my time."
Mythical truth: Black Swan: "The series of drawings and the drawing animation project exploring personal narrative that delves into superstition and religion, melancholia and mourning relates to feeling of insecurity. Black swan as a metaphor of the uncertainty, visual narratives weave the feelings reflecting questions about conflicting identity, social issues such as man made disaster and humanity."
Phaptawan Suwannakudt
"I relocated to Sydney in 1996 which would make 2016 the 20th year of living in Sydney. My daughter will turn nineteen this year. The work in series Reincarnation of the Butterflies juxtaposes one full and two halves of subjects from two locations. It represents my lived-experience which intertwined between my two homes, Thailand and Australia.
When I was a child I had an undercover play area to myself under a raised wooden platform outdoor. It was the base for staircase which led to the first floor of my parents’ house. I usually crawled underneath and lied on the ground to observe sky through the gap of wooden planks of this platform. The light and shade from big branches of my neighbour's tree made shadow play like butterfly dance against the sun. I picked up its fallen leaf and saw curved parted in the middle of the leave which made it look like angel’s wings. I closed my eyes and suddenly the square box lifted up and flied away with the butterfly wings. At eight years old I posed this question to myself.
Is this the re-incarnation of a butterfly? Then what would my life after death be?
Years later my daughter entered High School in Sydney. I noticed the same tree by the fence of the school. I picked one leaf and saw that it was parted in the middle which made shape like two human hearts bound together by the side. Or it could be a halved heart with its side hanging on to one another.
Is today life after death of yesterday?"