Tally Beck Contemporary will present the first solo gallery exhibition in New York for Thai painter Tom Techawong.

The show will feature approximately 16 acrylic and oil works on canvas and watercolor works on paper. Techawong’s work explores human tendencies within various societies to respect the authority of rules. He infuses his work with symbols that imply commands, such as traffic signs and barriers around construction sites. Techawong focuses on these iconic images, and their meanings are glorified in his stark, specific observations. He uses the context of this imagery to make the viewer aware of these powerful semiotics. The “symbol of rules” that Techawong paints mimics the tendency to question such laws and ensure their regulation. The technology of visual symbols exists among all cultures and is a phenomenon that inspires contemplation, questioning, and evaluation.

Techawong lives and works in Thailand, where he is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Research Facility of Fine and Applied Arts at Khon Kaen University in Thailand’s Isaan region. He studied painting and graduated with an MFA in Fine Art from Silpakorn University of Fine Arts in Bangkok and has shown extensively in solo and group shows in Thailand, Japan and South Korea. Techawong is now preparing an exhibition entitled Silpa Bhirasri Creativity Grants: 2013, which opens May 2014 at Silpakorn Art Gallery, Bangkok, and work for the exhibition entitled Gas Station, which opens in November 2014 at H Gallery Bangkok, curated by Brian Curtain.

*image (left)
Tom Techawong 
Traffic Cone 4, 2010
oil on canvas, 4 ft 11 in × 4 ft 11 in
courtesy of the artist and Tally Beck Contemporary Gallery