“Colorful” and “The Butterfly Effect”

I was supposed to write on it earlier this month, and inform all the art lovers in Bangkok about the not-to-miss exhibition at BACC(www.bacc.or.th)… But I’m awfully late and then, you will have only few days until August the 30^th to visit those great exhibitions if you didn’t do it yet.

On the second floor of this landmark building, two galleries propose the works of young talented artists who work with fabrics. The two girls have a very different approach of the material they use, but the results are equally beautiful and authentic. I know what you may object: It is a usual and patriarchal pattern to bond and limit the girl’s artistic expression to the work of textile. I cannot agree more, but this time I was really happily surprised to see what Rungploy Lorpaitoon and Nilraya Bundasak did make with what can be seen as a timeless cliché: girls love fabrics.

The first one created a dreamy vision of Time in a poetic installation. Little bags of translucent and colorful silk are hanging from the ceiling, creating surrealistic school of “jellyfishes”, moving slowly toward each other, depending of the movements of the visiting people. Indeed, passing by visitors act on the general shape of the piece, but of course cannot control the effects they trigger. The swing of the little balloons id very slow and sometime even difficult to see, but the uncontrolled yet soft wave in the structure makes it almost alive. Thus the name of “Butterfly effect” I suppose, where a single move would blossom in a large tree of consequences.

Nilraya, on her side, works on embroidery. Her characters and outdoor scenes are rendered with the use of large stiches of colorful treads. From afar, it looks perfectly realistic, but with a twist: The closer you approach to her fantastic work, the more you realize the power and the unbelievable strength the artist mustered to obtain this vivid effect. The stiches seems to go in every direction in a frenzy dance of color and lines. There is something almost wild and savage in the way Miss Budasak put the treads on the fabric. Her technique is far away from the controlled and regular image we keep carrying of a girl doing embroidery. Nevertheless, the final image is perfect, precise, rich and well balanced. The wildness of the technique is tamed and serves the depiction of smiling and joyful people. Interesting and vivifying contrast.