Somluk Pantiboon

Somluk Pantiboon is an international artist whose award-winning ceramics are flavored by a great sense of the local. Born in Chiang Rai and trained in Chiang Mai, Somluk worked for five years on pottery and printing projects at Khmer and Lao refugee camps before training with master ceramicists in Japan. His training in Japan allowed him to fully understand how a variety of influences and techniques may be absorbed and distilled.

On settling in Chiang Rai, Somluk and his wife, Tamako, founded Doy Din Dang, a showcase and studio for his work. Nestled amidst idyllic scenery, Somluk and Tamako are ever-present to greet visitors, and their café adds to a certain ambiance.

The simplicity of Somluk’s large and robust ceramic vessels belies a complexity of thought and references. Based on the form of seeds, the artist is concerned with cycles of growth and rebirth—ideas that can be generically linked to Buddhist thought—and Somluk has written about his concerns for the detrimental environmental effects of consumer culture.

His ceramics ultimately emerge as objects of contemplation; their organic and tactile forms, with naturally uneven glazes, suggesting a means of thinking about our relationship to nature and the world we live in.