Exhibition: PRATUANG EMJAROEN : Traces and Trails – Curators Interview

02.01.2018

Sub-Series

1 Video

Pratuang Emjaroen:
1935 Thonburi, Bangkok It was because his father unexpectedly passed away when he was young, Pratuang finished only grade four and had to get a job. Many years of hard toil, Pratuang was a wage-earner who did any kind of jobs even low-paying or laborious to support his family. In his teens, his elder brother got him a job at Advertising where he developed his skill as an impressive billboard commercial painter until he had many jobs painting advertising poster. Things are at the turning when Pratuang saw “Lust for Life”, he turned his back on a successful career to become an artist. Pratuang devotedly learned all on his own especially from nature. His experience gives him a particular color theory that appears in every pieces belongs to nature and Dhama including the series of his social protest created during the period between 1973 to 1976.
With his sacrifice to art that is in harmony with every single moment of his life, his effort finally yields its fruit. His success could be noticed through his fifty years of work. With his commitment to artistic creation, Pratuang was honored as 2005 National Artist of Thailand in Visual Arts (Painting) and has been given many honorary awards for his lifetime success.

Event Date: 02 September – 27 November 2016
Location: Main Gallery, 8th floor
“PRATUANG EMJAROEN : Traces and Trails”, an art exhibition to honor Pratuang Emjaroen, a living legend artist in order to reveal the creative evolution of Pratuang who was praised the 2005 National Artist of Thailand in Visual Arts. Paisal Theerapongvisanuporn and Thanom Chapakdee, guest curators have selected Pratuang’s over five decade bodies of works by structuring in five periods.

The first period, 1962 sees the first step of the artist who has never studied in any art school. This is the phase of exploration and searching for his creativity. The works belong to this period thus bear different contents and styles depending on his experiments.

The second period – around 1963 marks his particular color theory that is explicitly expressed through “Abstract” series. Color scheme which is extremely beaming, bright, and blazing truly denotes its creator. This is the age of his success on various art competitions either the National Exhibition of Art or the Bualuang Painting competition in which Pratuang consecutively won many awards from both contests.

The third period starts in 1973 when Pratuang was inspired by the democratic movement. So his works speaks very powerful political messages reflecting contemporary social maladies before his creative path stopped because of the next three years political event in October 6th, 1976.

In the fourth period sees his excellencies either of intellectuality and skillfulness. Pratuang travelled everywhere, embraced every single feeling he had and then expressed all of his feelings through his imagination in the form of graceful and colorful paintings.

The fifth period is when he could liberate himself from his success trap. He began exploring the new path. Pratuang freely drew and painted in order to create distinctive pieces. His evolution tells us that his traces and trails have never once stopped developing.

Arts Network Exhibition department

VDO

BACC Main sponsor: Thai Beverage Public Company Limited
BACC Project sponsors: Bualuang Foundation, Thai Roong Ruang Industry Company Limited, and CMO Public Company Limited

Reference ISAD (G) to describe a set of documents