| Vivid Imagination 'Remains Unfettered' | |||
| UPDATE : 5 January 2010 | |||
The purity of art can bring pleasure to many of those who experience the results, while often assisting in the spiritual development of the person responsible for producing it. Forty-three-year-old Tanong Kotchompoo has been captivated by the art of painting since secondary school when he says his talent flourished thanks to the encouragement and praise he received from his classmates and teachers. An unscheduled interruption But Tanong's promising future received a sharp jolt at the age of 12, when he was diagnosed as suffering from a form of muscular dystrophy, a group of hereditary muscle diseases that weaken the muscles that control the human body. By the time Tanong was 18, he had become disabled from the waist down and was no longer able to walk. Despite this deterioration in his health, Tanong continued to paint until he was 25, by which time the upper part of his body, including his hands, could no longer function normally. Inspired by a disabled foreign author, who managed to pen a book by using her mouth to write, Tanong felt that there was no reason he should have to allow his illness to stop him from doing something he enjoyed doing so much. From that point in time, Tanong began to spend much of his days producing paintings by using his mouth to hold the brush. A positive attitude “It's in no way a 'desperate, unavoidable situation',” he says of the experience, while pointing out that his use of the mouth to produce paintings could just as easily be compared to two able bodied artists using different mediums, such as water colors and pencils. After a good deal of trial and error, Tanong eventually figured out that the best place to hold the brush was between his molars, using his neck to control the direction of the brush, in the same way the wrist does for able bodied artists. Tanong explained that his mother came up with a special brush for him, which she fashioned from a sharpened length of bamboo. This not only provided Tanong with a very light brush, it is also longer than an average brush, so this helped him with his technique since paintings of different sizes would often require brushes of different lengths.
Daring to dream Although he has received lots of public recognition for his efforts, Tanong says he is not driven by a need to demonstrate that he is still 'able' despite his severe disability. “It doesn't matter how prepared we are when it comes to technique, as we won't be able to achieve anything without using our imagination,” he says. Tanong's work is inspired by real-life events going on around him, along with his reactions and responses towards them. In one of his earliest works, Tanong portrays his mother sitting on an aging wooden balcony, with the sun setting behind her. He says that this composition compares aging with the time of day. The setting of the sun therefore relates to the aging process his mother and all living beings must face up to at some point. Indeed, in Tanong's opinion, art can represent the artist's own personal spiritual growth. “Although I now face limitations in terms of my physical growth, there are no such bounds when it comes to my spiritual growth.”
Collaborative efforts Tanong also works with an organization called Mouth and Foot Painting Artists (MFPA), which was founded by English artist Erich Stegmann, who also has a physical disability. Stegmann acts as a form of agent for other disabled artists looking for channels through which to sell their compositions. Tanong is currently involved in the production of 100 paintings of rivers throughout the kingdom. On completion, each painting will be presented in tandem with verses produced by well known local poets. The exhibition is scheduled to take place during the middle of 2010 in Bangkok. If you are interested in Tanong's work, or would like to receive updates about the exhibition he is currently working on, you can contact him via email at sek_silapha@hotmail.com. | |||
วันอังคารที่ 2 กุมภาพันธ์ พ.ศ. 2553
Vivid Imagination 'Remains Unfettered'
สมัครสมาชิก:
ส่งความคิดเห็น (Atom)
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น