Pongsuang Kunprasob’s debut exhibition at WTF Gallery, “Ungrateful Records”, reviews episodes from his past, some of them through a prism of nostalgia, regret or both. All the paintings on display here touch on relationships he had with various people in his life.
Pongsuang's imagined record store, with the cashier's counter tucked into the back-left corner.
He and his mother were never really on close terms, he revealed, but it was her death, four years ago, that motivated him to commence work on this artistic project.
“This, in a sense, is an attempt to bring her back to life once again,” said Pongsuang, a designer/illustrator whose face will probably be familiar to habitués of the capital’s party scene. “I didn’t take care of her as much as I should have done. This is just symbolic; this is me telling her, through my paintings, the things I’ve always wanted to tell her but never got the chance to.”
Pongsuang assumed the burden of guilt he felt as a result of his mother’s death would lessen with the passage of time. But that didn’t happen.
“As time passed, it actually got harder. The feelings of guilt affected everything. I was never in a long-term relationship and I guess that’s because I never really knew how to take care of love. I tried to run away from it, but it got to the point where it became unbearable," he said. “This exhibition is a confession, a way to let everything out.”
Pongsuang Kunprasob.
On the second floor of WTF Gallery he has created a site-specific installation, a mock-up of a small record store. On the shelves, instead of LPs encased in colourful covers are paintings on canvas of a similar size. Some are reproductions of his favourite album sleeves, others are artwork for vinyl offerings by imaginary bands, images meant to capture precious moments he shared with family members or friends.
One of the bands he dreamed up goes by the name “Teens of Thailand”, and each of the albums released by this imaginary group serves to capture some special event or time in his childhood. The cover for an LP called “Ice Heaven” depicts a lively scene in an ice-skating rink, while the sleeve for “Good Friend” is an almost cartoonish representation of two barely pubescent boys sitting side by side openly engaged in mutual masturbation.
“I looked back at various moments and stories in my life and tried to imagine what kind of band would best represent them if they were made into music," he said. "When referring to former lovers of mine, it had to be rap music because you tend to talk a lot when you’re in love. When it was about friends from my time in university, it had to be a popular punk band because that period for me was nothing but a lot of nonsense.” What’s most striking about Pongsuang’s paintings is the honesty that shines forth from them; one senses, somehow, that he would never try to make more of a subject or an incident than was actually there to start with. And while some might think the simplicity in his lines and painting technique is that of an absolute beginner, after inspecting the images more closely one may well conclude that this is the work of someone who has perfected various skills but has deliberately chosen to return to basics.
After graduating from Silpakorn University with a degree in graphic design, Pongsuang landed a job with Praew Sudsupda magazine as a columnist and illustrator, later going on to work for several other major Thai-language periodicals. He is the founder of party organisers Dudesweet and, together with a few friends, set up and currently runs a graphics company called Slowmotion. While trying to depict a particular memory on canvas, Pongsuang likes to listen to music that best fits his subject matter. When recalling interactions with his mother, for instance, he said he invariably puts on something by the Carpenters, which was her favourite band.
“I chose the record store [as a backdrop for the exhibition] because I’ve been very attached to music all my life,” he explained. “Another reason for this came from a conversation I had with the doctor when my mother was about to pass away. He said that when people are close to death, they often aren’t able to see or smell anything; that hearing is the only ability left to them.”
Some of the most captivating items in Pongsuang’s “record store” refer to periods in which his mother was intimately involved.
The cover for an album called “The Helper” (by an invented band named Woman) shows a young Pongsuang with a sulky expression on his face aiming a hairdryer at his mother’s freshly washed locks. He said this was a chore she would give him prior to her leaving the house for an engagement and he always used to find it very boring, hence the unwilling demeanour.
The cover for an album called “Please Wait Here” (by The Hospital) relives a painful moment when he was sitting outside an intensive-care unit waiting for news of his mother who was inside receiving treatment.
In the installation, too, he refers back to different periods in his childhood. Scattered on a sofa are homework assignments set by teachers at his primary school. Next to this, on a low coffee table, plastic bags and styrofoam containers of takeaway food are intended to symbolise all the food his mother used to buy for him. In a corner, on a counter behind which the record-store cashier might sit, lies Pongsuang’s Matthayom 3 report card waiting to be signed by his mother.
“After she died, I looked through all the stuff she had kept and found out she was my No.1 fan,” he said, noting that under a pane of glass covering a table she has placed old photographs of him alongside postcards he had sent her while travelling abroad.
While the record store is mere fiction, Pongsuang said he has fond memories of being at home with his mother when he was a schoolboy, he doing his homework while she sat and watched television.
“This is all imagination, just an attempt to recreate the times we spent together,” he explained. “The time here [in the record-store installation] is frozen at 4.30pm. School’s over for the day and I’m sitting here, doing my homework, waiting for her to finish work and come home.”
“Ungrateful Records” can be viewed at WTF Gallery, Sukhumvit Soi 51 until July 30.
“Good Friend”, an experimental work by Teens of Thailand.
One of the exhibits in "Ungrateful Records" inspired by Pongsuang's mother's love of the American pop duo.
