Richard Koh Fine Art (RKFA) Singapore is proud to present Thai artist, Torlarp Larpjaroensook (b. 1977) solo show of recent works in Singapore. Presented in the format of a mock-installation, Larpjaroensook’s exhibition In Progress will feature installed daily objects painted on canvas and wood. The exhibition will be on at our gallery from 28 June – 14 July 2012.
Torlarp Larpjaroensook, a Chiang-Mai-nurtured young Thai artist, is creating work so fresh as to be unsettling. He is not asking what makes something ‘art’ or what art is for. He wants to know where average reality ends and the works that he and other artists produce actually begin. Larpjaroensook seems to be searching for the answer amidst the concept of functionality, finding a correlation between uselessness and art and also between function and audience reaction.
In Progress gives viewers a glimpse into the hidden life of works of art. It presents us with a concept of the effort and heavily contemplated decisions that separate art from being merely the ingredients it is composed of. It is a continuation of ideas and of the practice of putting ideas on show, from which we can launch back in time to one of the most fascinating and fun movements in art history, or forward to where the new generation might be taking those ideas. Either direction will make one feel alive, and so Larpjaroensook’s work can have a lasting, deep effect.
The audience is challenged in forward-thinking. They cannot merely enjoy the aesthetics of – In Progress in fact they have to search. Larpjaroensook’s versions of objects create a distance within the viewer from the original or ‘real’ thing, and yet there are deliberate aesthetics there. The rough brushstrokes tell of what is weighing on his mind and those troubles, not simply the objects on show, form the art here.
The appeal for astute audience members and fast-learners lies overwhelmingly in the fun of being faced here with a Thai, new generation, post-conceptual artist. In Progress documents a rare surfacing, exciting and promising for the fact that such thinkers and creatives walk among us today and some are working artists on the Southeast Asian scene.
