Richard Koh Fine Art (RKFA) Singapore presents Kedsuda Loogthong’s The Unknown Silence. This is Kedsuda Loogthong’s second solo exhibition at Richard Koh Fine Art Singapore.

For her solo exhibition in Singapore, Kedsuda Loogtong presents paintings in the new series The Unknown Silence. The gigantic mounds of mostly anonymous books are staged in an indistinct dark space and appear like they have been left there and forgotten. Their contents removed and only left with their ghostly appearance. These books are no longer used to store information but are transformed into personal symbols. Rendered delicately in oil with luscious colours with a deep understanding of chiaroscuro, the paintings explore different visual compositions of a single shape, pure in its presentation and devoid of visual distractions except by the occasional alphabets of the titles illustrated on a strayed spine or a protruding brightly coloured bookmark.

The visual and symbolic powers of objects have always intrigued the artist. Her very early works in which she “painted” popular branded consumer products such as Kellogg’s cereal boxes and Sun-Maid raisins containers out of clay on canvas speaks of the seductive and potentially alienating powers of consumer goods when presented in specific contexts. The glossy Western products found in convenient stores in her home village seems alien and displaced in the eyes of simple country folks. From this series, Kedsuda recognizes the symbolic power of objects when framed in selective contexts.

The young Thai artist’s interest in the formal appearance of books has been an on-going investigation and she has explored the motif in a variety of media such as drawing, sculpture (wood, plaster) and painting. In her previous series, The Book of Silence, exhibited in the Philippines in 2013, she explored her personal affection towards her private collection of books and mundane objects and the relationship developed with paperbacks when they are read.

-Richard Koh Fine Art

Image: © Kedsuda Loogthong
Courtesy of the artist and Richard Koh Fine Art