Phaptawan Suwannakudt will be exhibiting a new body of work at Arc One on the
28th July, 09. Born in Thailand in 1959, Suwannakudt has worked as a traditional
mural painter for over twenty years. Her interest in traditional painterly style developed bearing witness to her late father’s approach, the renowed Thai traditional mural painter Paiboon Phaptawan, and working as his apprentice.

Suwannakudt continues her ongoing personal narrative exploring representation,
culture and sense of place. She is a storyteller. Since moving to Australia in 1995, her aesthetic deals with the politics of locality and dislocation. Her voice engages with stories of the Buddha, mythology and Thai tradition and traces her own spiritual and physical history of transformation.

‘I instinctively scribbled down Thai names in my sketch book of plants found in
streets days after I first arrived as I migrated to Sydney. This was probably an urge of trying to communicate with the environment and create a mental space of my own. My first attempt in dealing with text was in the background composed with images of Buddha statues in work Consecration I in 2002 referring to the ceremony in the temple where I lived in during my early childhood.’ Suwannakudt

In addition to the suite of paintings, Phaptawan will exhibit a series of fabric constructions initiated through her 2008 residency in Isarn.