Emerging Thai Artist: Narate Kathong – Exhibition in Asian Contemporary Art Gallery opens February 2022
Throughout the second half of 2021 and into 2022 Asian Contemporary Art Gallery will be featuring artworks by emerging Thai artists. A solo exhibition by Narate Kathong opens in the South Room of our gallery in the first week of February 2022 and runs through to 30 June 2022.
Narate Kathong is the youngest of ten children. His parents were farmers and he grew up in a jungle environment in Phayao Province, northern Thailand. His childhood memories of nature are a deep and lasting inspiration for his work.
Narate says: "I hope that everyone is more aware and turns towards preserving nature for future generations. When there is nature there is mankind, and when there is mankind there is nature. Humans and nature, we depend on each other mutually."
He studied painting at Rajamangala University of Technology's Payap Campus in Chiang Mai between 1991 and 1993. Narate subsequently studied printing arts at the same university’s Poh-Chang campus in Bangkok from 1996 to 1999, then spent a number of years providing drawing services, specialising in commercial arts.
From 2008 Narate moved away from commercial drawing and immersed himself in his inspirations and the development and refinement of his pointillism painting techniques. His inspiration comes from nature and his interest in impressionism. He is strongly influenced by Georges Seurat and Claude Monet.
He initially experimented with shaking and spraying paint onto the canvas with a brush, and spent significant time developing his own splashing technique to control the formation of dots. In 2009 he then began to experiment using his fingers to splash acrylic paint onto the canvas. The combined use of brush and fingers now forms the foundation of his pointillism technique, which has been refined to provide resolution and detail in his work, conveying shadowing and perspective. His artworks are cheerful and vibrant, and evoke a sense of peace and tranquility, capturing the viewer’s attention, immersing one in nature.
He has gained attention from art lovers and collectors internationally, and his works have been exhibited at international art exhibitions in Switzerland (the Montreux Art Fair in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and the Zurich Art Fair in 2015), Hong Kong, Australia, Taiwan, Malaysia, Korea and China.
