After British artist Andrew Stahl set foot in Thailand, he spent much of the day exploring Bangkok. It is a jumble of many buildings from modern high rises and bright neon signs to rickety shophouses and temples that never cease to amaze him although he is a frequent visitor. It has provided inspiration for his latest exhibition "Sparkling City".
"Bangkok presents itself as a place with high technology, a wonderful contemporary electric architectural environment alongside older buildings drenched in history and sometimes fragility and decay. The beauty of this highly energised and diverse city is compelling and provides me with the source of this recent work," he said.
In August, Stahl received an invitation from the Matdot Art Centre, an art space in the old town of the capital city, for a three-month artist residency. After the pandemic and his own unrelated illness, his stay has been "a very strange, extraordinary experience", which reminds him of Paul Gauguin's finest painting titled Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?.
His display includes paintings and sculptures which upon closer view reveal small images and details. Stahl wanted his work to show how ideas flow through the mind like fragments. They are "mind wanderings, a collection of flowing thoughts floating across the surface and poetic interactions to the amazing city".
Stahl is currently a professor at the Slade School of Fine Art of University College London. He has displayed works at home and abroad. In 1991, he received a scholarship from the Wingate Foundation to explore many countries in Southeast Asia. He has joined many exhibitions in Thailand, including the first Bangkok Art Biennale in 2018.
"Sparkling City" is running at Blacklist Gallery and Matdot Gallery until Nov 12.
