May 16th, 2009
Somkiat Kaewnok
There is nothing like the feeling of luxury. Phuket Hotels remind the guests that home is where you lay your hat. When you set your hat here, the city opens up and calls you one of the family. A low, rumbling bustle on the streets opens the doors to a wonderful array of urban excitements, and lovely peaceful nights will bring rejuvenation to guests looking for business or indulging in pleasure. Phuket has a long history of visitors, looking for Thailand’s secret heart and hoping to unlock the constantly shifting treasures of the city. Nighttime strolls can turn into sudden enchantments, reveries, or rowdy parties with the locals. They can also lead into metaphorical mental musings, the type which might result in inspirations for paintings.
Local artist Somkiat Kaewnok earns his livelihood from such musings. This young artist is rapidly becoming an international phenomenon on the global art scene, and is a definite local treasure. Showing primarily in Thai galleries and in Bangkok, his work is becoming widely known and recognizable for its unique style. Born in Southern Thailand in 1971, he is still a relative youngster in the art world. But his impression is already deep. His first obsessions, with painting the women from the Padung tribes, remains the primary obsession and subject matter of his work. Their practice of placing metal rings around their necks to extend them fascinated him as a child, and became the primary objects in his work. Through developing his style over the years, the subjects are still women, moved from the intense focus to the women from the Padung tribes to other women on the island, and the style has moved from more realistic impressions to abstracted female figures. But they still have the same iconic long and beautiful necks that are his trademark. The work is entirely otherworldly. The most recent works from Somkiat Kaewnok are a vibrant and colorful testimony to the poetry of a painter’s vision.
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