With a bachelor's degree in Art Education from Chulalongkorn University, 34-year-old Rukkit "Gift" Kwanhawan is a graphic artist whose works can be seen both on the streets and in galleries. His distinctive renditions of animals with the use of the "block stencil" technique has earned him an elevated place in the Thai art scene. He recently contributed his works to various art projects and events such as "Do You Read Me?", "Bukruk" and "Unspoken Dialogue". His designs have also been commissioned on products of local bag maker URFACE and French clothing brand Mamama. Gift's latest project, "Tikkur", is named from an informal way to say sticker in Thai and is also his name spelt backwards. It allows people to create their own image with stickers that come in different shapes and patterns. You can buy a Tikkur pack at Sneaka Villa* in Siam Square Soi 2 (089-168-6336), Superrzaaap in Terminal 21 (02-108-0573), DESIGNITI & The FEDeration in Beacon Zone of CentralWorld and BKK Graff store in Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC). Go to facebook.com/Tikkur for more information.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR JOURNEY TO BECOMING A GRAPHIC ARTIST.
I had been working as a freelance graphic artist for a while, creating artworks for different events, until P7 [a noted Thai street artist] invited me to join him in creating a mural for the FOR2 event at BACC. That was the turning point and I've been doing a lot more artworks since.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR STYLE?
The style that I'm known for today was born after I stumbled on the "one block stencil" technique. Basically, I use simple blocks that contain vertical, horizontal and curved lines and create an outline of an image with them. Therefore, the image is limited by those lines I use, making the outline a simplified version of what it would look like in real life like a low-res graphic. However, the outline will then be refined with colours, patterns and other ideas.
WHY DO MANY OF YOUR WORKS DEPICT ANIMALS?
I've been working with stencils for only a while so I prefer subjects that aren't too difficult to render. Animals are a good start. They have their own character, with each symbolising something different.
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO START TIKKUR?
I was invited to show my works at a sticker art exhibition called Unspoken Dialogue and began thinking about how people could mix different stickers and create an image out of them, depending on their imagination. I want to approach sticker art in my own way, following the same ideas in my previous works. I picked heads of animals I created, took them apart and reconstructed them and discovered that different animals share some common parts. It takes a little adjustment here and there to create a new animal and I think anyone can do that to create his/her own image by composing different parts together.
WHAT CAN PEOPLE EXPECT FROM TIKKUR?
In each package of Tikkur, you'll get stickers that come in different forms and sizes and a picture of the finished image. However, I encourage you to have fun and play around with them to create your own image. You can let your imagination run and customise your very own sticker.
