Artist Statement

My work is captivated by the transformative power of the painted object and its ability to elevate the unremarkable into something of perceived value through aesthetic camouflage. This fascination reflects my complex journey between cultures. Born in the United States, raised in Thailand, and now residing here again, I feel tethered to, yet distanced from, my Thai heritage. Shame, displacement, and longing shape my identity. Paint, with its layered, illusory, and abstract qualities, mirrors this in-betweenness. It allows me to connect through distortion and to infuse my constructed forms with imagined histories and cultural weight.

My process is an act of reclamation through approximation. Though I have not inherited the direct mastery of Thai craft traditions such as goldwork, lacquer, mother-of-pearl inlay, wood carving, or mural painting, I create contemporary surrogates that reference them materially and chromatically. Poplar and birch from home improvement stores are dyed with aniline to mimic the richness of temple interiors. Patinated copper and brass mesh are pleated and layered like ornamental weavings. Fused plastics become sites for mural-like abstraction. Palettes of red, green, gold, silver, and bronze, drawn from Thai visual culture, become signals of devotion and value. These translations are not imitations but offerings. They honor what was lost and convince both others and myself that I have a place within the lineage of Thai cultural production. I approach craft not as mastery but as inheritance through distortion. The objects I create hover between reverence and ruin. They are encrusted, suspended, or worn like spiritual armor. These forms function as speculative artifacts from a future past and offer survival strategies in a world that no longer remembers how to care.

My speculative world is shaped by ecological collapse, infrastructural inhibition, cultural assimilation, and spiritual disconnection. It is a place where survival depends on ritual, adaptation, and ancestral knowledge. Through sculpture, painting, and wearable works, I explore healthcare access, overconsumption, waste colonialism, and the politics of preservation. My seven years working in environmental science left an imprint. Contamination, residue, and filtration now underpin my visual language. Waste becomes a material of faith, transformed into devotional skins, relics, and protective fragments.

When I die and reincarnate, I hope to leave behind not just objects, but a will to create. That will is meant for the next version of myself, and for others navigating the same in-between. Art becomes a form of spiritual persistence, a way to carry memory even when the body or culture falters.