EXHIBITION

ORAWAN ARUNRAK

Counting

20 July–25 August 2019

BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition, COUNTING by Orawan Arunrak, an artist with an observant eye and a wayfarer who collects anecdotes from people of her day-to-day associations. Since 2016, her life has been shifting between Bangkok and Berlin, conversations and observations with city dwellers of a vicinity accumulated into multiple sketches. An assemblage of stories implemented into drawing and writing, Arunrak’s first solo exhibition with the gallery invites audiences to count and assimilate a rhythmic pattern of her shifting life by walking through architectural elements as an index of inhabitation, a foundation of home. For Arunrak, an off-site drawing potentially generates interesting conversations, and she has been employing this tactical process to produce her artwork. Unlike an arranged interview, an organic exchange between the artist and passersby offers more room, a drift to wider observation of the surroundings—in other words, a social illustration of city dwellers. Her artistic language maneuvers in the careful lines, mellow color, and soft words, constructs multiples trails of reading, and slowly morphs into a silhouette of her own body. In COUNTING exhibition, the prefabricated concrete blocks are materials available in the space, the transitional space that stories await for people to find and collect. The accumulation of stories are kept within the piles of concrete from which places Arunrak spent time crafting her narratives. The act of counting is a meditation, a slow discovery—from the artist to audiences, from the footpath to the gallery. Her artwork is like a communication between softness of drawing and roughness of concrete. It also resembles how kids often play and draw on the street.

SELECTED WORKS

Orawan Arunrak, Wake-Up Man, 2019

Orawan Arunrak, Wake-Up Man, 2019

Orawan Arunrak, Flower Communication, 2019

Orawan Arunrak, Flower Communication, 2019

Orawan Arunrak, Melody of Tears, 2019

Orawan Arunrak, Melody of Tears, 2019

Orawan Arunrak, Our Ladies, 2019

Orawan Arunrak, Our Ladies, 2019

Orawan Arunrak, Bamboo Man, 2019

Orawan Arunrak, Bamboo Man, 2019

VIDEO

ARTIST

Orawan Arunrak. Photo: Wolfgang Bellwinkel

ORAWAN ARUNRAK

b.1985. Lives in Bangkok, Thailand and Berlin, Germany

Orawan Arunrak’s artwork – largely inspired by her everyday life – encompasses diverse forms such as drawing, painting, and installation, employing tools like pencils, pens, paper, but also photography and the internet. Her practice meticulously engages with local communities, endeavouring to dissolve boundaries between conventional art and non-art spaces. She navigates through multifaceted terrains of national, cultural, and spiritual identities, crafting pieces that reflect both similarities and divergences of her domiciles in Asia and Europe. Each work transcends visual representation, embodying dialogues and narratives that explore the complex relationships and stories entwined with each unique location and culture, offering viewers insights into the interplay of art, identity, and geography inherent in her oeuvre.