Artist Spotlight - Sompong Adulyasaraphan
If Salvador Dali and Hieronymus Bosch had a child in Thailand
I recently had the pleasure of the MoCa Bangkok (Museum of Contemporary Art) during my visit to Thailand. The museum was extensive (to say the least) with both traditional and contemporary Thai artworks at every nook and cranny. I was amazed at how every floor (there are five of them total) was just teeming with Thai culture. Many of the artworks had to do with Buddhism and Thai mythology, but there was a healthy amount of political, abstract, and even European art there. Although I firmly believe that all the artists there deserve far more exposure, one stuck out to me the most: Sompong Adulyasaraphan.
Born on October 23, 1947, Sompong is one of Thailand’s leading surrealist artists. After he graduated from Silpakorn University with a degree in art, he began a career as a professional photographer, leaving painting as a hobby until he gain the popularity that reached museums.
In an interview Sompong stated “I don’t have a lot of work to show because my working process is relatively slow, partly because I use tiny brushes to get the fine detail and partly because of my poor eyesight. A large painting can take almost two years to complete.”
I can see why a single painting can take two years. Sompong’s work is some of the most intricate and fantastical I’ve ever seen. So much so, that it immediately reminded me of the great Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch. You might know him from his 7ft x 12ft foldable oil painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights (shown below). In a tremendous oversimplification, this piece, which can be read from left to right, serves as a sort of moral warning for humanity against temptation.
Sompang’s paintings holds the same mastery of detail and unbounded imagination, while also donning strong symbolism for mythical and religious figures. While Hieronymus tackles temptation, a dominant theme in Sompang’s work is the needless exploitation of the nature and the impertinence of life. The artist himself chose to live 20 years isolated, farming fruits near a forest in the Kanchanaburi Dan Makham Tia district, out of resentment for the cities. Needless to say, I was lucky to be able to see his work in Bangkok of all places.
Stepping into his exhibit felt like stepping into another world. The image above is an oil painting by Sompong titled Two-Dimensional Village (2013). This painting echoes the Buddhist philosophy regarding birth, death, and the ephemerality of the body. The combination of skeletons and body show that life and death are always intertwined, warning us to take life with consciousness and to release what we hoard.
You can see that eggs are a recurring symbol in his artwork, just like in fellow surrealist Salvador Dali’s paintings. “The shape of the egg is beautiful and the eggs themselves are delicate and fragile. I use them to show that everything in nature has its own beauty, but the beauty is subject to decay,” he states. The interplay of warning and juxtaposition in his work appears to transcend the very boundaries of surrealism, rendering his art a realm of thought that exists on a plane of its own.
Although his work is limited, the founder of the MoCa Bangkok, Boonchai Bencharongkul, has taken upon himself to release an art book titled “Transcending Thai Surrealism” illustrating many of Sompong’s work that have been exhibited in the museum. That being said, if you are in Bangkok, I strongly urge you to swing by the MoCa and take a look at all the wonderful artists there, Sompong included.