While Peng Janthasorn's work looks like Rembrandts that have been X-rayed, there is a major difference between the young artist and the Dutch and Renaissance masters she loves. Peng cannot paint.
Instead, the 27-year-old Nakhon Ratchasima-born artist assembles her images digitally, merging photographs and altering them until they match her vision. Peng aims for the pieces to be as close to Renaissance paintings as possible, but through pushing the paintbrush aside in favour of manipulating pixels.
"They are like a collage, but they have been edited so the image blends into the background, it's been blurred, it's been sharpened, brightened, etc," Peng told Brunch.
"It is essentially digital collage, but there's a lot of consideration to it, it's not just plonked onto the canvas."
Printing the end result on canvas is an essential part of pulling off the effect, but Peng also pays careful attention to getting the lighting and composition just right.
"Because I'm really into 16th century paintings, like Renaissance or Dutch paintings, and also because I can't paint, I just really like the style and the technique in the sense of the lighting and how it looks, I try to do that. By putting it on a canvas it makes it look like a painting.
"I can't paint, so I think it's a case of wish fulfilment. I just do it digitally."
Peng has been engaged in a flurry of creativity recently in preparation for her debut solo exhibition, Split, which has been months in the making. The show opened last night at Jam in Charoen Rat Soi 1 and will run until June 26.
Layers of meaning: Peng Janthasorn, right, was inspired by 16th century artists, but her inability to paint forced her to turn to digital technology to produce collage-like works.
In the days leading up to the show, Peng was excited, but "very nervous" and uncertain exactly how many pieces would be finished in time. "I would like to create around 20, but I'm still creating more things so it might be less or it might be more, I can't say. But enough to fill the space," she laughed.
Peng's output has come in bursts since she first dabbled in digital art at school in Thailand and university in the UK. There is, she said, no particular routine or rhythm to her work, and her mood often dictates what is produced.
"When I create my work or these images, I just do it because suddenly I'm inspired or I've got a few ideas. It takes a few months because sometimes I get artist's block and I don't know what to create or nothing's kind of popping out.
"Sometimes it can come in a rush. This kind of artist's block could last for a month or two and I don't get any work done, but fortunately I'm feeling pretty inspired now so I've been able to create more work.
"I just think that because art is so versatile, you can kind of create anything with everything using all types of media, and it's also quite therapeutic for me. Instead of going jogging or exercising when I'm really stressed, I just do some artwork."
The gallery describes the work as negative emotions and memories that are "digitally reassembled on a canvas" and born of a "highly personal and cathartic process". The artist herself doesn't give the impression it is quite so dramatic as all that, and comes across as bright and cheerful, but said she does delve into dark places and sees a lot of confronting imagery during the creation of the pieces. In combining the eerie with the beautiful, contrasting skeletons and carnations or skulls with pansies, hours are spent looking at the grotesque.
"The reason I like to explore dark and melancholy stuff is I just feel like people are afraid to express their negative emotions," Peng said. "It's not a very nice feeling. Generally, I'm a happy person and I just thought exploring the other side, the negative side, would create a better or more interesting kind of work.
"When I'm creating my work, I do go through … looking at organs and skeletons, I go through some nasty pictures."
The X-ray effect is most jarring when juxtaposed with flowers, another recurring theme in Peng's work.
"I've always been interested in flowers, they're very beautiful and versatile and come in all shapes and sizes and textures, and they also have deeper meanings," Peng said.
"So I like the aesthetic of the flowers. I also like to play with the contradiction of how the flowers come into quite a gruesome, quite a dark context. That's why I use some of those X-rays, some of the skeletons, maybe a bit of blood and the skulls. I've always been fascinated by dark stuff, but also wanting to make it quite pleasant at the same time.
"Everything that's beautiful is going to look bad eventually. Well, not bad, but older and rotten and not as glamorous."
Having settled in Bangkok after completing a photography course at Norwich University of the Arts four years ago, Peng has been featured group exhibitions. For her solo debut, she is hoping there will be enough of a range that different works will appeal to different segments of the audience. Just as there are pieces which are dark and disturbing, there are others where flowers dominate and bright colours take over.
Peng does keep the target audience in mind while creating her pieces, but said ultimately what is produced varies wildly from day to day.
"I do end up creating in different styles just because that day I'm into bright colours. Even though an artist like Picasso evolves over the years, for myself my style changes quite often just because of my emotions and just what I've been through that day. Colours play an important role. I think it's also to do with me doing a photography course and learning how colours do play with people's emotions. And also they convey different stories or different feelings behind the work."
But don't expect Peng to give any more clues about messages in her work -- as far as she is concerned, meaning is in the eye of the beholder.
"I'm not really sending an important message that could change one's life, it's more a case of sharing something I've made. If I were to say something about my work, it would be don't limit yourself: try to explore whatever you want and can." n
Peng Janthasorn's solo exhibition Split is on until June 26 at Jam gallery, bar and cafe in Charoen Rat Soi 1. Opening hours are Tuesday-Sunday, 5pm to midnight. Call 02-673-9009.
