Natee UTARIT Thailand b.1970
Mother (from 'Appearance and reality' series)
1998
Oil on canvas
Triptych: 64 x 141cm (overall); 64 x 47cm (each panel)
Purchased 1999.
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Reproduced by permission of the artist
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Natee Utarit produces his paintings
in the Bangkok studio he shares with his mother. While he paints,
she sits. The rear view that he has of his mother, in the corner
of the studio patiently making miniature silk flowers each day,
is the view he has chosen for this portrait from his 'Appearance
and reality' series.
In these paintings, the artist
investigates the relationship between what we see and what
we feel, using imagery and empathetic composition. However,
by choosing to paint his mother's portrait from behind, the
artist also shields her from the prying gaze of the onlooker,
indicating that she may be vulnerable. To communicate his
ideas about the outside (seen) and inside (unseen) aspects
of human existence, Utarit has ignored the usual approach
to portraiture by focusing on emotions rather than physical
appearance.
This work deals with the deep
feelings the artist and his mother have silently shared since
the death of his father twenty-four years previously. Utarit's
mother has not spoken of her feelings since her husband's
funeral. However, during those years, she has refused to wear
black and white, which are the traditional mourning colours
in Thailand. Her sense of grief continues as a personal and
private ordeal.
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Natee Utarit
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Natee Utarit lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand. In
1992 he graduated with a BFA in painting, sculpture and
graphic art from Silpakorn University, Bangkok. Since
that time, he has concentrated on painting. From 1995
to 1998 he moved through a variety of styles and explored
a number of subjects. |
His recent work has followed two distinct paths: large-scale
abstracted, gestural landscapes and human-scale paintings of
his mother.
Rather than see these two paths
as oppositional, the artist considers them as subtle variations
of the same concern, the desire to engage with personal feelings
and experiences.
| Other
lines to follow for Natee Utarit |
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Natee UTARIT Thailand
b.1970
Mother (from 'Appearance and reality' series) 1998
(detail)
Oil on canvas
Triptych: 64 x 141cm (overall); 64 x 47cm (each panel)
Purchased 1999.
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Collection:Queensland Art Gallery
Reproduced by permission of the artist |
'Bertrand Russell said that perception
of objects depended not on physical and environmental factors,
but also on our thoughts and minds. This is in accordance
with my works . . . the communication with appearance. It
also includes my attempts to reach the hidden reality of appearance.
My painting then serves as a
channel of communication between the inside and the outside,
set under the relationship of what we see and what we feel.'
Natee Utarit quoted in Beyond
the Future: The Third Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary
Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1999, p.160.
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