Project X: Udomsak Krisanamis

The name of Udomsak Krisanamis might be unknown for Thai art scene. Some may know him as a Thai artist who lives and works in New York. His distinguished painting is a collage which is a composition of piece of paper pasted over the canvas and unifying color. The uneven surface of painting of which main elements consist of the strip and the image of “0” are appeared from the space of the color unification to bare a circular form of number (6, 8, 9, 0) on the advertising paper. The abstract painting by Krisanamis leaves a mark of materials used, meanwhile some are hidden.

 

Project X at Gallery VER is totally different from his normal works. In 2003, he had a collaborative art project with Rirkrit Tiravanija in Birmingham, England. For Tiravanija’s artwork, it is an imitation of bar in Puerto Rico of which wall decorated by Krisanamis’ five-poster/wallpaper. The touch of graffiti on the wall is by enlarging his painting, small elements like strip and dot from the painting were brought out and became the image in itself. By silkscreen technique, poster/wallpaper by Krisanamis in 2003 is now become the painting on the wall of GalleryVER.

 

The picture on the two-sidewalls at Gallery VER is a combination of painting and printing technique. The light brown of the first layer is taken from dousing, pouring and painting tea on it. It comes out with formless grime. For the black, the silkscreen technique was printed on very fragile and transparent papers then put on the wall over the tea grime. The poster look likes ever is disappeared even though the same picture shown. It is seem more like a wall painting. The flat art piece is entirely distinct from his general works, either do the enlarged form. Project X becomes an ad-hoc artwork.

 

Gallery VER is transformed into an atmosphere of a bar. In a supplementary appearance by a surrounding of Chao Praya River and lighting from lantern which made of water dippers (also Krisanamis’ an unconventional artwork), it is reinforcement for his work. It is neither just a wall painting nor an unusual form of lantern, but it means the atmosphere of the whole exhibition space, which is different from another part of the space of VER office. It is not only a space allocation by its partition. The floor plan of the open-ended passage which implies that there is more space behind and its mirror sidewalls letting us look outside, Project X is apparently specified its physical appearance for being an art space in another space clearly.