Published on July 16, 2005

The wild colour of Yuree Kensaku’s pop iconography is the only blush you’ll see from a woman who takes on gamblers, double-entendres and politicians

The white walls of 100 Tonson Gallery are strung with the bizarre, cartoon-like paintings of young Thai-Japanese Yuree Kensaku, but don’t let her fanciful pop obscure the deep thought she’s put into them.

In her second solo show, “It’s Spiritually Good!”, Yuree is less than serious on the surface – all bubblegum pastels – but there’s gripping stuff beneath: political corruption, a power-hungry prime minister, the mania for gambling, even the bloodshed of Iraq and our own deep South.

And some of the subject matter comes from the subconscious.

“The exhibition’s title came from a dream,” explains the 25-year-old. “One night I dreamed I could sing look thung [folk music] like a professional, despite the fact that I’m not used to the style – but I was only repeating the one line, ‘it’s spiritually good’.”

Yuree, who earned her art degree at Bangkok University, attributes many of her dreams to her habit of watching late-night TV.

“My dreams and my paintings share similarities. Both come from accumulated tiny memories and anxieties, as well as the surrounding environment. They’re also vague. It’s like a patchwork collage where I combine many fragments – but I can’t explain their connections.”

Underscoring how hard it is for many people to differentiate between reality and illusion, Yuree discards the images of Lord Buddha and the Chinese goddess Kuan In from their framed and illuminated mirrors and replaces them with figurative acrylics and enamels, stickers and fabrics.

You can still plug in the frames to get the effects of shimmering lights and recorded prayer chanting – but the icon is utterly transformed.

In “Blind Faith (Horse Racing)”, two men on horseback embody gambling, while their co-addict in “Blind Faith” stands atop his sinking house naked, lamenting his love of cockfighting.

Several works feature three-headed rabbits, cats and cows in multihued sashes being worshipped by people hoping for a lottery-winning number.

And in “The Leader”, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra wears the sash used to mark “sacred” figures and places as he stands naked on the axe-shaped outline of Thailand holding a mobile phone. He seems to be declaring his supreme power over the country.

“I remember when the prime minister headed upcountry and people asked his age so they could use the number in picking a lottery ticket,” says Yuree.

A regular contributor of illustrations in women’s magazines like Praew and Phuying Wannee, she paints on objects other than the illuminated frames, including square plastic lampshades, rectangular aluminium trays and the circular covers for neon lights. All are utterly collectible.

But beyond her creative use of everyday objects, Yuree experiments with contrasts between flat backgrounds and dense and crinkled paint. In “The Battle”, acrylic heavily coats a circular plastic light cover in a scene from Iraq during the American invasion. A soldier rides a tank into a landscape of mosques, with barbed wire and a bloody head in the foreground.

Hung adjacent to this work is “Battle of Love”, which depicts a sadistic couple in a hotel room. Yuree enjoys playing with words, and the contrasting meaning of the word “battle” tickles her sense of humour.

“Yiew Khao (Journalists)” is a television set spray-painted vibrant green. Two news anchors appear on screen, and on top of the TV is the sculpted figure of a peeing man.

In Thai, yiew means a hawk, but if the letter hor heab is omitted, it means urinating. Yuree is evidently mocking journalists who are hungry for news.

Several of the works reflect more personal moments – her love of the Beatles, her passion for Korean soap operas and the loss of her beloved father two years ago.

His death, she says, replaced the family’s comfortable warmth with the chill of mourning. In “Sadly, Thinking of You”, Yuree has painted herself trying to tie together a house broken in two.

“I wanted to play with the term phook phan, which means to be bound by family ties. Here, the word phook [tie] is literally interpreted.”

“It’s Spiritually Good!” continues until August 14. The gallery, at 100 Soi Tonson off Ploenchit Road, is open Thursday to Sunday from 11am to 7pm. For more information, call (02) 684 1527.

Khetsirin Pholdhampalit

The Nation

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