The elusively narrative nature of his paintings are conveyed with minimalist pen and acrylic markings. Upon first viewing I struggled to come to grips with his fleeting ephemeral world. When asked about his new paintings an extremely humble Prawech indicates that the themes of his paintings are about bringing happiness into peoples lives. This seems like a very simplistic explanation for pictures that are able to convey so much with so little. His paintings remind me of the fleeting nature of our existence and the cerebral tricks that the world plays in order for us to imagine that we are anything more than colorless atoms. Perhaps Prawech intuitively understands this or perhaps it is an unintended consequence of his particular artistic/scientific endeavor.



Prawech Pranaprom


Before meeting Prawech I was really hoping that he would be an untrained, dirty psychopath. His bubble paintings have a very beautiful folk art quality and I was actually somewhat surprised that he had both Bachelor of Fine arts from the Kasem Bundit University in Bangkok (which is where he is from originally) and a Master of Science in Interior Design degree from Pratt. The fact that I originally thought that he had no formal education is not meant as an insult at all. The opposite is actually is true as my aesthetic palette usually prefers that which is untainted by academia and is instead infused with raw emotion and intuition.

I was greeted with a look of surprise upon greeting Prawech and his wife. They probably were not expecting a dude half their age but I was able to convince them into a sit down at a sausage restaurant that claimed to have 11 inch sausages. His wife did most of the talking in the impromptu role of an extremely pregnant agent. She was very sweet and personable albeit looking somewhat confused as I explained my checkered past that led me to the role of freelance art journalist. I tried to explain the connection that I saw stylistically in Prawech’s work with Art Brut and Lowbrow/ Pop Surrealism (for lack of a better term). They graciously accepted my comments and showed me 10 or 20 drawings and paintings (my favorites which I’ve included here).



Prawech Pranaprom



Prawech Pranaprom


When asked to describe the impetus behind his art Prawech maintained astute yet simplistic responses. His artist statement simply states (his original somewhat broken English intact): “The circular forms I use to create figures give ones the impression of continuity of life, which has no beginning or end. I depict our daily life experience as positive energy that brings endless possibility into the world.” To me his pictures are much deeper than that though. They seem to depict seemingly asinine life circumstances with a hint of malaise and horror. They laughed at this observation not knowing quite what to think of my oddball criticisms. Not wanting to be thought of as a total shmuck I had to bite my tongue when wanting to tell him this seedy disconnected quality about his pictures was what intrigued me the most about them. The red painting of a man pouring another drink for an inebriated looking woman especially seemed a sharp commentary of urban life and its proclivity for alcoholism and hysteria. The portrait of a pregnant woman pushing a granny cart full of parcels trailed by two scary looking wiener dogs reminds me of many sad eyed women who I pass daily the smell of heartbreak and despair fresh in the air. We all each interpret the world differently, the colorless atoms fusing into retinal images the same way that Prawech’s singular bubbles come together to for a full composition.

KAI1





Prawech Pranaprom



Prawech Pranaprom