Panya Vijinthanasarn and Andrew Stahl

CONVERSATIONS:
THE VIVID REAL
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CONVERSATIONS: THE VIVID REAL
Exhibition by
Panya Vijinthanasarn and Andrew Stahl
19 July 31 August, 2014
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Published 2014 by
Thavibu Gallery Co., Ltd.
JTC Jewelry Trade Center, Suite 433
919/1 Silom Road, Bangkok 10500, Thailand
Tel. 66 (0)2 266 5454, Fax. 66 (0)2 266 5455
Email. info@thavibu.com, www.thavibu.com
Layout by Wanee Tipchindachaikul, Copydesk, Thailand
Copyright Thavibu Gallery
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
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without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
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FOREWORD
Jrn Middelborg
Thavibu Gallery
Thavibu Gallery has the pleasure of presenting the current catalogue and exhibition,
CONVERSATIONS: THE VIVID REAL by two lecturers from famous universities teaching art,
Panya Vijinthinasarn from Silapakorn University, Bangkok and Andrew Stahl from UCL
Slade School of Fine Arts, London. The exhibition takes place in Bangkok, Thailand, on
19 July 31 August 2014.
The artists are long time friends and collaborators and this is the third joint two-person
exhibition of Panya Vijinthanasarn and Andrew Stahl, and their first at Thavibu Gallery.
I take this opportunity to thank Panya Vijinthanasarn and Andrew Stahl for their collaboration.
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CONVERSATIONS: THE VIVID REAL
Andrew Stahl
This exhibition is a collaborative effort and both artists are committed to painting as a
viable and magic contemporary medium. They focus on the discussion of the poetic,
imaginative and symbolic and share their belief in the ability of painting to present a
multi-layered and complex poetic view of the world around them.
Andrew and Panya often use their paintings to present contradictory arguments or
unexpected juxtapositions of both scale and subject matter. Panyas paintings revisit and
reinvigorate traditional Thai and often Buddhist iconography with a continual reference to
todays world and life force. His paintings are often monumental in scale and contrast a
dominant image with small details. There are writhing snakes, limbs, fragments and decorative
elements juxtaposed against a large-scale image, generally a Buddha head.
This reminds me of my rst of encounter of the Buddha at Wat Pho where this gigantic
and awkward reclining gure immensely beautiful but with a weight and solidity that
reminded me of the corporal oddness and gravity of the human body in its vulnerability
juxtaposed on a completely dierent scale by the eeting and supremely delicate minute
mother-of-pearl images on the sole of the feet of the Buddha. This mother-of-pearl activity
is happening on a dierent scale to the large Buddha; it suggests a set of thoughts, a mind
wandering and a determination to show the multiple and complex nature of thought and
context. Panyas and Andrews paintings are both interested in this layering and additional
dimensions.
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Both Panya and Andrew talk about the process of stepping back from the painting; looking,
adding, removing stepping back again, looking, adding detail, then stepping back as an
ongoing process. This becomes a conversation between the painting and the artist.
Panyas paintings are carefully and immaculately realised and have an eortless brilliance
and virtuoso quality. He quite often chooses to remove evidence of the artists hand in a
seless way that puts his art in the objective public domain. Andrews paintings have a more
autobiographical approach; the symbolism that ows through the work is derived from life
experience and a fascination similar to Panyas with painting as a conversation. Andrew is
interested in a poetic and almost existentialist approach. He discusses the vivid (as referenced
in Alan Ginsberg in his poem Cosmoplitan Greetings) and refers to the surrealist ideas of the
marvellous. His paintings are often collections of thoughts and small images owing across
the surface.
Both artists value the contemporary possibilities presented by intercultural interaction and
the electric potential that transcultural interaction can provide. Both have experienced each
others culture, Andrew lives in London and his interest in Asian culture stems from artists
residencies in Thailand and other parts of Asia. Panya lives in Bangkok and for Panya the
experience of studying in England (both artists are former graduates of the UCL Slade
School of Fine Art) and afterwards was in London painting the Buddha Padipa Temple in
Wimbledon, London. These experiences have provided both artists with a sense of contempo-
rary art beyond their own culture.
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PLATES
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Panya Vijinthanasarn | Mindfulness, 2014 | Acrylic and oil on canvas | 200 x 250 cm
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Panya Vijinthanasarn | Golden Mystique, 2014 | Oil on canvas | 150 x 150 cm
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Panya Vijinthanasarn | White Lotus, 2013 | Print and pen on paper | 73.5 x 102.5 cm
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Panya Vijinthanasarn | Realm of Naga, 2014 | Print and pen on paper | 73.5 x 102.5 cm
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Panya Vijinthanasarn | Realm of the Universe, 2014 | Print and pen on paper | 73.5 x 102.5 cm
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Panya Vijinthanasarn | White Ladder to Black Heaven, 1984 | | Etching on paper | 60 x 57 cm
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Panya Vijinthanasarn | Mind & Body, 1983 | Etching on paper, ed 8/12 | 13 x 16 cm
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Panya Vijinthanasarn | Why?, 1983 | Drypoint on paper | 13 x 16 cm
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Panya Vijinthanasarn & Andrew Stahl | Sea Float, 2006 | Acrylic and oil on canvas | 100 x 200 cm
Panya Vijinthanasarn & Andrew Stahl | Sea Float, 2006 | Acrylic and oil on canvas | 100 x 200 cm
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Andrew Stahl | Songkran, 2013 | Oil on canvas | 244 x 183 cm
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Andrew Stahl | Ekamai Fountain, 2005 | Oil on canvas | 244 .0 x 212.5 cm
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Andrew Stahl | Euston Road, 2014 | Oil on canvas | 120 x 90 cm
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Andrew Stahl | Origin of Everything, 2013 | Acrylic on paper | 75 x 58 cm
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Andrew Stahl | Fountain on Uxbridge Road, 2013 | Oil on canvas | 36 x 25 cm
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Andrew Stahl | Mimi-Stars, 2014 | Oil on canvas | 36 x 25.5 cm
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Andrew Stahl | Gion Rain, 2014 | Oil on canvas | 80 x 60 cm
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Andrew Stahl | Kiss, 2013 | Oil on canvas | 30 x 25.5 cm
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Andrew Stahl | Tune In 2, 2005 | Oil on canvas | 70 x 90 cm
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Andrew Stahl | Tureen, 2003 | Oil on canvas | 80 x 100 cm
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Andrew Stahl | Starry Night Fountain, 2005 | Oil on canvas | 35 x 50 cm
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Andrew Stahl | Fountain Plane and Boat, 2003 | Oil on canvas | 80 x 100 cm
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CHRONOLOGY
Panya Vijinthanasarn
Panya Vijinthanasarn, formerly Dean of the Faculty of Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Arts of
Silpakorn University in Bangkok, is presently a lecturer in the Thai Art Department, Faculty of
Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Arts of Silpakorn University. He studied in 1982 at the UCL, Slade
School of Fine Art on a British Council scholarship. Panya has shown internationally in galleries
and museums in many countries and widely in Thailand. From 1985-1987, Panya led a team to
decorate the Buddha Padipa Temple in Wimbledon, London, with neo-traditional murals that
dealt with the conventional subjects of the Three Worlds. This led to further commissions to
create the mural paintings for the Thai Pavilian at Expo88 in Brisbane and Expo92 in Seville.
During 1995-1996 he was commissioned by the Siam Commercial Bank to paint murals for
the new Head Oce and he also collaborated in illustrating His Majesty The King of Thailands
book, Mahajanaka. Panya is also exhibiting in the international exhibition MD3 Fragility and
Monumentality at the Bangkok Art and Cultural Center.
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Andrew Stahl
Andrew Stahl is Head of Undergraduate Painting at the UCL Slade School of Fine Art in London.
Andrew has exhibited in London and the UK and widely internationally acrosss America, Europe
and Asia and several times previously in Thailand starting with the British Council show British
Painting in the eighties. He has received many awards including the Abbey Rome Scholar-
ship and the Wingate scholarship for travel in South East Asia. He has also participated in
public-funded residencies in Thailand, China, Australia and Sri Lanka. His exhibitions have
been frequently discussed in international newspapers and art journals and his work is in
many private and public collections including: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York;
Arts Council England; British Council; The British Museum and the Government Art Collec-
tion. Andrew is both exhibiting and the curator of the international exhibition MD3 Fragil-
ity and Monumentality at the Bangkok Art and Cultural Center, open till the end of August.

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