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Lot Essay
To deconstruct a classical image, Natee Utarit assumes a complete authorship of his novel new image whilst retaining the cultural references of the old ones. This is not a radical anti-establishment graffiti but a re-construction of the fragments, both in the emotional and formal sense, in search of a new order that is relevant to the present whilst retaining a strange, almost ironic archaic poetry as one recognizes the fragmented classics. A tension is inevitably created between the classic and the contemporary and tension that renders this work so very compelling.
Instead of thinking about his painting practice as purely an act of creation, Natee views the act of painting as a mode by which to question the very nature of artistic creation and originality. He appropriates iconic imageries from many different periods in art history, repaints them in attempts to illustrate the concept of mimesis, or imitation, and proceeds to leave traces of their incompleteness and inherent instability as painting on the physical nature of the paintings themselves.
The present lot, The Young Cardsharp (Lot 218), is a work that confronts its viewers not only as a subtle imagery but also as a trace of the artist's focused exploration into the layered dimensionality of painting. Painted in 2002, it is one of eight large-scale paintings executed by Utarit in a project entitled Reason and Monsters. The project took the form of three exhibitions at Numthong Gallery and The Gallery of Art and Design, Silpakorn University. Based on Caravaggio's 1564 work The Cardsharps, this lot reflects the artist's abiding interest in dealing with notions of representation, illusion, mimesis and other visual theories.
Instead of thinking about his painting practice as purely an act of creation, Natee views the act of painting as a mode by which to question the very nature of artistic creation and originality. He appropriates iconic imageries from many different periods in art history, repaints them in attempts to illustrate the concept of mimesis, or imitation, and proceeds to leave traces of their incompleteness and inherent instability as painting on the physical nature of the paintings themselves.
The present lot, The Young Cardsharp (Lot 218), is a work that confronts its viewers not only as a subtle imagery but also as a trace of the artist's focused exploration into the layered dimensionality of painting. Painted in 2002, it is one of eight large-scale paintings executed by Utarit in a project entitled Reason and Monsters. The project took the form of three exhibitions at Numthong Gallery and The Gallery of Art and Design, Silpakorn University. Based on Caravaggio's 1564 work The Cardsharps, this lot reflects the artist's abiding interest in dealing with notions of representation, illusion, mimesis and other visual theories.