Things worked out perfectly for Yanawit Kunchaethong’s exhibition “Print from Paa Sa-nguan”, which features prints made with colours extracted from forest plants. After all, the 108-rai forest in Petchaburi in which he sourced his materials is owned by his family. Helping him further, knowledge and love for plants and trees have been instilled in Yanawit since he was young by his father, Sa-nguan, and mother, who even visited the forest while she was pregnant with him. His father’s name, in fact, also serves as a pun in the exhibition’s title, referring to both a conserved and the family’s forest.
The ‘Print from Paa Sa-nguan’ exhibition.
As a professor who teaches printing at Silpakorn University, Yanawit strives to be an example for his students in finding ways to think outside the box. Once an art graduate school student in Japan — a country where he still teaches at various universities — printing and nature have strongly shaped his artistic identity. His technique of using organic colours, he said, is the first used in the world.
On the surface, “Print from Paa Sa-nguan” seems to be dedicated to environmental concerns, but deeper are implications of Buddhist ways of thought, of saving slowly disappearing Thai culture and a homage to a much-loved late father.
How did the idea of printing with colours made from forest plants come about?
I’ve studied and worked with printing for a long time. It is a craft that requires a lot of chemicals, whether lithography, screening or etching. Coloured chemicals are used, and the process itself also requires chemicals, as etching requires acid on metal plates to create the images. If you’ve ever been near one, the smells of a printing press are terrible.
I wanted to create prints that didn’t destroy nature, where the process didn’t involve chemicals. The plants are all from my own forest and I extract the colours myself, so I wasn’t destroying trees or plants elsewhere.
Organic prints use different techniques, and I’ve researched a new process that doesn’t involve any chemicals. Some print artists create work about saving the environment and have lovely prints of landscapes, but are destroying nature in the process. It’s ironic that they are just thinking about their end products, but not the process required to make them.
How much do you usually extract from a tree?
Sa-nguan, left, and Yanawit Kunchaethong.
I just take some rind from under the bark, then paint cement over the cut to prevent rotting. It’s so hard to grow, and my father loved trees, so I have to take care of them. [This exhibition] has a lot to do with culture, too, because all these trees have their own culture.
Sadly, trees are losing their significance. There are all these plants with Thai names, such as maplub (Gaub tree) or magua (Siamese ebony), that people don’t really know any more. It’s all fading away because forests are being cut down. These words are disappearing from our language and culture, while simple life in the country, where we dye clothes with dyes from plants and make medicine from herbs, is also fading. I hope we come to learn about the qualities trees have and what they were used for in the past, because if they are cut and gone, they are gone forever. When my kids in class ask me about flowers and trees, I try to tell them so it brings these plants back to light. We live so close to them, yet many times don’t even know their names or value.
What are the challenges of working with organic colours?
Some plants have a lot of gum, some are greasy and some are very watery. To extract colours, some need to be blended in a blender or stoned in a mortar. Every colour is different — some stick to the print because they dry too fast. To overcome that, I put honey into the colour so it would dry slower. Nevertheless, the diverse chemicals found in these plants also have different reactions with the plate. Nature really creates its own image. That’s what makes the prints special, unlike those made with normal colours. I picked dentata ruby flowers for a green print. When you look at the real landscape, it is filled with round, white flowers everywhere. I don’t know how, but when they dried, round circles formed in the print and it looks like the field the flowers used to make the ink came from!
How sustainable are these organic colours?
When working with the subject of nature, the philosophies and ideas are also about being Buddhist, letting the artwork go the natural way and not being attached to the finished product because nothing is certain. Japanese collectors who buy my work don’t care [that the colours fade] at all, but rather about my thought process in creating the pieces. Colours from turmeric and Siamese ebony are very rich, but natural colours can never look like those that come from a tube. They cannot be mixed, either, but I think that’s the charm. Even when the earthy tones fade, the changes are what makes the work interesting.
Thai people are more into figurative work and may need time to learn to appreciate abstract art, unlike the Japanese. We’re also not as familiar with printing, but in Japan it’s very distinctive and has been around since the Heian period. It’s so ingrained in their culture — that’s why it interests them.
The world is jumping to organic trends, such as those in the food and clothing industries. Can art truly follow that path as well?
A certain group tries to, but not everyone can because there’s such a diversity of art types and new technologies. Art also reflects the culture and environment of each age, and this is the digital age, so I guess some would be inclined to use digital platforms. I do wonder if one day there won’t be a need for photo frames. If you think about it, just the act of displaying artwork is already a waste of energy, isn’t it, with all the lights and air conditioning that are required?
I happen to have a feel for nature-related works because I grew up in that environment. Everything worked out because of my forest, my father’s name, even my forest caretaker’s name, which was See (the Thai word for “colour”)! I started this project the year my father died, so all this is in remembrance of him — he was the one who nurtured this great forest and passed on all his knowledge about trees to me.
- ‘Print from Paa-Sa-nguan’ is on display at the Art Center, Center of Academic Resources, Chulalongkorn University until Aug 2.
- The centre is open Mon-Fri 9am to 7pm and Sat 9am to 4pm.
A shelf containing jars of organic colours.
