Pen People Mar 2018

"The Transplanting, Rice Cultivation" (2017), by Sudrak Khongpuang
I’m on my knees and leaning over the large canvas oil paintings of Sudrak
Khongpuang as the artist herself uncovers and displays one picture after
another. We’re on the floor in the Portuguese Bend home of Ben and
Peggy Zask, where Sudrak is in residence for one month, a stay which concludes
with a reception at South Bay Contemporary/SoLA Gallery in Los
Angeles.
Sudrak lives in Thailand and the majority of her paintings depict the rural
countryside outside of Bangkok. The pictures are vibrant and lush, saturated
with color, and yet the tones are earthy and cool. They are often filled
with gentle hills, sprawling rice fields, quiet ponds with water lilies and
lotus flowers, a water buffalo or two and a few billowing clouds in a blue
sky. They are Edenic and one would not be afraid to step into them, for
there are no crouching tigers or hidden dragons.
Childhood memories brought to life
Sudrak Khongpuang has been described as a naive Surrealist, and in art
this might imply someone without an academically-trained background
such as Henri Rousseau, Grandma Moses, or even Maudie Lewis (depicted
in last year’s film “Maudie” with Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke). However,
since Sudrak has a pair of university degrees that definition travels
only so far in this case. As for the Surrealist handle, one could point to René
Magritte (if we regard Sudrak’s floating islets with their tethered rowboats
dangling in the aether), but the undulating ridgetops and the smooth pastures
also recall the American regionalist painters, mostly of the Midwest,
such as Roger Medearis, Grant Wood, and Thomas Hart Benton.
In Sudrak’s painting, though, with its more intense hue, the work springs
from the fond memories of her youth, when she would spend time every
summer with her grandparents, away from the big cities. Those were pleasant
days for her, and she often uses the word “happy” when referring to
what she felt or in describing what she hopes to convey through her art.
I would probably substitute the word peaceful, or maybe soothing and
"Childhood" (2017), by Sudrak Khongpuang
Thai artist Sudrak Khongpuang returns to the peninsula
contemplative, because if we mention “happy” paintings others might think
we’re really saying saccharine instead, and these pictures are anything but
that.
The landscapes do contain people, as well, but they are often tiny figures,
usually seen in the distance and trudging through a path in the rice fields.
The meaning is clear: Sudrak is expressing her reverence for nature and
this ties in with a Buddhist tenet that says S/he who knows nature, knows
life.
Bridging an ocean through art
This isn’t the first time Sudrak has come to the United States. Two years
ago she was given a solo show called “Grown Up” at the Loft in San Pedro.
That show, like the present one, was under the auspices of Peggy Zask and
South Bay Contemporary. It was also before Zask moved her gallery out of
the harbor and farther north.
Peggy Zask isn’t known for luring artists from other countries, so how
did she and Sudrak first connect?
It started with a mutual friend of Peggy’s and Ben’s named Matthew
Thomas, who was an artist at Angels Gate, above Point Fermin. He participated
in an art show in Thailand that was organized by Kamol Tassananchalee,
who is among Thailand’s most respected artists (he represented his
country in 2015 at the Venice Biennale). That was when Thomas met Sudrak,
they became friends, and later Sudrak mentioned her desire to exhibit
her art elsewhere. She’d already been shown throughout Thailand, and so
Thomas reached out to Peggy and Ben.
It’s clear that they were instantly smitten by Sudrak’s work.
Enlarging her repertoire
This time, though, she’s expanding her palette, her artistic horizon, by
trying something different: Sudrak is moving from 2D to 3D. Or, as Peggy
explained it to Alyssa Wynne, “Ben and I work with found objects in order
March 2018 • Peninsula 45