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Lot Essay
The Buddhist belief in the impermance of things is a central tenet in the work of Thai artist Attasit Aniwatchon. Having received his MFA in graphic arts in Silpakorn University, Bangkok, Attasit maintained an art practice in painting and print-making before deciding to enter monkhood. The period spent as a monk had a significant influence on his works; they gained in gravity, with more solid thematic grounding and the dominance of dark hues like brown, gray and black.
The present lot, In The Garden, developed parallel to his solo exhibition, A Talk 2 the Blues, which showed works created in 2005 and 2006. Rendered like a digital image, with feline figures crowded around a pond, the picture bears qualities of the dream-like fantastical and a reality that is possible with digital and technological imaging. The feline figures have conspicuously missing eyes, transmitting a sense of distance and anonymity. What prevails in In The Garden is otherworldliness, one that gains visualisation only in the rich imagination of the artist.
The dominant visual imagery in In The Garden is the pond, its reflective surface a metaphor for looking. The artist, true to his faith, believes in the essences of things and people instead of being charmed or arrested and led to believe the superficial and surface appearances. The pond is simultaneously a world of its own, what with its surface being merely a mirage of reality, and a vista onto the phenomenal observable world of reality we live in.
The present lot, In The Garden, developed parallel to his solo exhibition, A Talk 2 the Blues, which showed works created in 2005 and 2006. Rendered like a digital image, with feline figures crowded around a pond, the picture bears qualities of the dream-like fantastical and a reality that is possible with digital and technological imaging. The feline figures have conspicuously missing eyes, transmitting a sense of distance and anonymity. What prevails in In The Garden is otherworldliness, one that gains visualisation only in the rich imagination of the artist.
The dominant visual imagery in In The Garden is the pond, its reflective surface a metaphor for looking. The artist, true to his faith, believes in the essences of things and people instead of being charmed or arrested and led to believe the superficial and surface appearances. The pond is simultaneously a world of its own, what with its surface being merely a mirage of reality, and a vista onto the phenomenal observable world of reality we live in.