Tawan Duchanee

Tawan Duchanee is one of Thailand’s most high-profile and revered artists. Holding a Ph.D. from Holland and now settled in the remarkable compound of Baan Dam (“Black House”) at Nang Lae, just outside the city of Chiang Rai, Tawan’s innovative use of mythic forms and surreal gestures bespeak an artist engaged with contemporary interpretations of tradition. Tawan produces art at various intersections; history and myth, tradition, contemporary modernism, and post-modernism.

His finely-tuned renderings of images and creatures from Thai mythology and popular culture demonstrate a sense of condensed history and say much about the times we live in; be it in Thailand or elsewhere. The past will always be present. Tawan’s juxtapositions, however, are not uncontroversial. In 1971 a number of his paintings were slashed by nationalistic students. The so-called “shock of the new” is important if art is to have any real value for a society. Tawan understands that change can be created by invoking the familiar while re-imaging its essence. Many typical symbols of Thai culture are represented across Tawan’s work in painting, drawing, and Thai architecture, but he re-invents and re-imagines in order to insist on ever-new understandings.