Phaptawan Suwannakudt

The Bamboo Tales, 2021

 

For the artist’s first time exhibiting in Pakistan, Suwannakudt presents The Bamboo Tales, a mixed-mediamixed media installation where a group of bamboo rods are vertically suspended above a reflective surface surrounded by dark soil. The bamboo rods are inscribed with the names of plants grown in the artist’s backyard in Sydney and Dharma teachings in the Roman script of English language, the First Nation oral language (from the book People of the Rivers by Grace Karskens), and Thai script. Holding myriad names, languages, and stories, they hover over the looping curved lines that symbolize is the symbol of the diagram for the life cycle, a traditional symbol of the Lanna people in Northern Thailand the artist descended from. Thinking through the death of family members, Covid restrictions, and the bushfire and flood that devastated Australia and the regrowth in the aftermath, the artist relates the movement of nature with the life cycle of human beings. To the artist, they are part and parcel of our worldthe world we are, the manifestation of the Lanna lines of infinity, forming the samsara life, sufferings, death, and rebirth.

Phaptawan Suwannakudt was born in Bangkok in 1959, and now lives in Sydney, Australia. Suwannakudt is an interdisciplinary artist whose works are informed by Buddhism, women’swomen issues, and cross-cultural dialogue. With an initial focus on Thai mural paintings, Suwannakudt trained and apprenticed under her late father Paiboon Suwannakudt (1970-1981), and later led a group of mural painters by the name of Tan Kudt Group (1984-1986). She was involved in the women’swomen group exhibition Tradisextion at the Concrete House 1995, the precursor of Thailand-basedThailand based Womanifesto International Women Collective 1997.