The Mango Art Festival 2024 at River City in Bangkok (running from 7th to 12th May) includes a new series of paintings by Wittawat Tongkeaw. As in his exhibition 841.594, the colour blue dominates his recent work (in a reference to Thailand’s tricolour flag). His paintings are for sale, and each price ends with 112. (Lèse-majesté is article 112 of the criminal code.)
In Wittawat’s exhibtion The L/Royal Monument (นิ/ราษฎร์), paintings of sunsets represented a desire for transition. Displayed at the Mango Art Festival are paintings of sunrises, with orange skies signifying the rising popularity of the progressive Move Forward Party (whose logo is orange). Titles include Blue vs. Orange (showing the sky split between the two colours), Blue to Orange (in which the sun is rising over the sea, implying that the almost entirely blue sky will become orange), and Hope (a sky filled with blazing orange light).
In Wittawat’s exhibtion The L/Royal Monument (นิ/ราษฎร์), paintings of sunsets represented a desire for transition. Displayed at the Mango Art Festival are paintings of sunrises, with orange skies signifying the rising popularity of the progressive Move Forward Party (whose logo is orange). Titles include Blue vs. Orange (showing the sky split between the two colours), Blue to Orange (in which the sun is rising over the sea, implying that the almost entirely blue sky will become orange), and Hope (a sky filled with blazing orange light).
Wittawat’s work over the last decade has been dominated by political symbolism, which has the potential to arouse scrutiny from the authorities. But another painting at the Mango Art Festival gives the artist some plausible deniability: depicting clouds in a blue sky, it’s wittily titled It’s Just the Sky, Nothing More. Wittawat used a similar painting of a sky in his provocative installation Creation-Conclusion (เริ่ม-จบ) at The L/Royal Monument.
