“Emotions Fugaces”. Kitikong Tilokwattanotai and Jiratchaya Pripwai, two major artists on the Thai contemporary scene, are invited to explore the ephemeral nature of emotions through abstract and meditative creations.

Collage: a new dimension in the work of Kitikong Tilokwattanotai

In his new series, Kitikong continues his exploration of the meanders of memory in a work full of symbolism. While the artist is renowned for his expertise in lacquering, he is also developing a collage technique.

This new technique echoes a tradition from Northern Thailand, the ‘Toong’ or ‘Tung’, multicolored flags used during Buddhist ceremonies. These assemblages of paper and other colored materials mark the boundaries of sacred sites, inviting the local population to enter and then be offered to the divinities. Kitikong appropriates this ancestral practice to create works where the material, charged with history and spirituality, becomes an additional vector of emotion.

Kitikong’s collages are visual narratives where fragments of paper, in a variety of colors, form complex and vibrant compositions. Each collage is an assemblage of memories, impressions and sensations (a kind of contemporary mandala where past, present and future merge).

By incorporating collage, Kitikong invites the viewer to meditate on the concept of time and the permanence of the human being. Fragments of paper, like memories, are traces of the past still influencing our present. By collecting and recombining them, the artist creates works that reveal the complexity of the human soul.

Jiratchaya Pripwai: The visual poetry of emotions

Jiratchaya Pripwai brings us into a world where emotions are translated into abstract lines, colors and shapes, creating a real visual poetry. Her works, marked by an introspective creative process, transform her memories and feelings into a unique pictorial language.

Jiratchaya uses frames and colors to release complex emotions, recording traces of her experiences without attempting to freeze a final result. Her approach reflects a vision of the world where emotions are in perpetual motion, oscillating between memory and oblivion.

Jiratchaya’s poem, to be discovered in the exhibition, also reflects this tension between memory and oblivion. Using poetic images such as ‘a butterfly with blue spots fluttering’ and ‘the cliff of remembrance and oblivion’, the artist invites us to meditate on the fleeting nature of the present moment. Her art, like a breath, captures the moment, sublimating it, then lets it fade away, like flowers that bloom before withering.

Her creations question the essence of memory, seeking to capture those moments that elude her, while reinterpreting them in a new and peaceful form. Her paintings are like fragments of an inner conversation, offering the viewer a window into her emotional world. Her work proves therapeutic, enabling her to canalize her emotions while at the same time sublimating them.