There’s more to Thailand’s Deep South than muslim insurgents, although news reports would have you think otherwise.
An exhibit currently running at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center “Emerging Patterns: Contemporary Art of Songkla, Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat” reminds visitors that the Isthmus of Kra has always been a cosmopolitan area and gives us Bangkok city dwellers a chance to check out the advanced and thought-provoking art of the Deep South. The BACC hopes that the exhibit is “an occasion to further the dialogue process between people of various parts of the country” and that “through art, Bangkok will now have a chance to gain some insight and share cultural ideas.”
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“Emerging Patterns” proves to be a well thought out name for the exhibit, as most of the art in the show is full of patterns echoing the batik designs of the area and materials are generally textured and three-dimensional. Among the 28 artists exhibited in the show, “the intrinsic gift of pattern making is discernible, riding on local traditions,” says the show materials.
A pair of portrait paintings of elderly Muslims, perhaps a couple, painted onto half-finished weaved mats best demonstrates the pattern theme. The combination of contemporary painting and classic craftsmanship is pulled off beautifully. I don’t know what the fact that the bottom of the mats aren’t weaved means – perhaps an unraveling of something? – but aesthetically it works.
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Another textured piece does broach the subject of the long-simmering pseudo civil war in the south, with paintings of tanks, guns, and grenades over mini-canvases swathed with what looks like Arabic script. In one canvas a man looks over his shoulder with an unfriendly red glint in his eyes.
“Emerging Patterns: Contemporary Art of Songkla, Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat” runs until October 16, 2011 at the Bangkok Art and Cultural Center, located at the Pathumwan Intersection across from MBK and Siam Discovery Malls. Open 10 a.m. – 9 p.m. (closed Mondays). http://www.bacc.or.th/
