Homegrown is an aesthetic journey, an artistic statement of a photographer who spent most part of his adult life making daily photographs of what he encountered. Graduated from the Fine Arts Department in photography from Chulalongkorn University, Prapas Krongboon (b. 1962) is a homegrown artist from Ang-Thong province who did not study overseas and had little experience abroad. The photographs weren’t from fancy cameras and his films and negatives were largely hand-developed by Prapas himself. The body of works shows a working, local artist in relentless creative process, using available tools and his eyes, his feelings for the subject and place. Ultimately a simple approach has instinctively developed into his own style.

Works in the exhibition were selected from more than 30 years of film/negative/slides. They reveal feelings and dimensions of subject, time, and place. The beauty lies in a truly happy face, or just a plain view of objects – all of which are just what they are, and their truth and beauty were brought out through Prapas’ lenses.

Prapas never let himself be boxed in a category, and has been keeping his work rather private, using them as an example to teach students in a small, community photography school that he started called Lit. A glance of his work, one may assume a type or genre of photographs he is taking. However, a closer look at his work reveals a breakthrough, an interesting crossover of still-life, street, portraits, landscapes – all of which convey the truth about his subjects. Above all, it’s the intuition from his understanding of art, his homegrown instinct about the subjects he portrays that brings his photographs to life, with a body of work worthy of an artistic career.

This exhibition only represents a small part of his work up to the present. Serindia plans to develop a series of intimate photography books based on his various works in Thailand.

-Serindia Gallery

Image: © Prapas Krongboon
Courtesy of the artist and Serindia Gallery