THE PRESENCE
Pokpong defines his work an "art of presence." Each painting, made with meticulous care down to the smallest detail, in the nuances, in the layers, and in the shadows evokes the physical presence of the observer so that the essence of the work can be perceived completely.
The author longs for a direct encounter between the public and "his" women, integrating or offsetting the ones to the others. The "art of presence", in this sense, also wishes to be an invitation to delve into - in the first person and along with other users - the themes pro- posed by his art, to inspire a community spirit and the present-day hope of living together and of respectful integration.
The woman's face and its different facets speaks of the multicultural world in which the artist is immersed and becomes a singular presence involving the collective memory - that can expand the spaces and create a new and great albeit an ever-changing one society.
THE COLOURS
"Instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I have before my eyes, I use colour more arbi- trarily, in order to express myself forcibly,” wrote Van Gogh.
Attasit Pokpong is inspired by his wife to portray his female ideal in a way that is as close as possible to reality; however, he exaggerates her features by painting fleshy red lips and a straight haircut framing her face, and by using tones that can voice her emotions. After a first period in which the impact of the portraits of women were focused on the lips, the artist then extended the chromatic brightness to the entire face, eventually tak- ing over the whole surface of the canvas in his more recent works. Such a change corre- sponds to the expansion of the artist's research. Pokpong uses female aesthetics to also explore contemporary society, using a wholly personal language that distinguishes him in the contemporary Thai art scene.
Pokpong is an "arbitrary colourist of emotions" who uses colours to analise sentiments through his subjects. Nonetheless, colour expresses not only beauty and emotion but intelligence and empathy as well. In fact, it assumes the value of a code that reflects the elements and symbols of Thai society and the globalised world, becoming the expression of an artistic reflection that spans from culture to traditions and to lifestyles, from economics to politics, thus becoming a code that celebrates diversity and aspires to a present in which everyone lives together with respect for the different forms of being and knowing.
THE REFLECTIONS
In his most recent works Pokpong has introduced the reflection of people and objects in the lenses of the sunglasses worn by the women he portrays. The reflection is linked to memory, which is, in turn, linked to a feeling of belonging that contributes to the forma- tion of an identity, cultural roots, and types of globalised reality.
The reflection thus reveals the context within which the artist's research is articulated: contemporary society, the past, the "other", the future, the change, which are crystallised in the evocative power of the "mirror". In the reflection the future is often presented side by side with the past, underscoring the importance of continuity and of knowing how to look inside oneself.
With the introduction of these reflected images in his paintings, Pokpongadopts a poetics of meta-representation, one that is capable of intensively revealing the complex human inte- riority. A new frontier was born in the artist's research, bestowing a voice on his own sources not only through colour, but also through a concrete representation of the memories - intimate, spiritual, and intellectual - that move the painter's hand.
THE WOMAN
The female protagonist in Pokpong's paintings is almost always portrayed in the fore- ground and from the front; she is both impassible and seductive. Her bright, fleshy lips underscore her beauty and bestow on her an aura of surreal sensuousness. Her Asian fa- cial features cause her gaze to be dense and penetrating.
The woman represents the ideal expressive vehicle of Pokpong's art, a figure that intrigues and disrupts the artist's inner world, enhancing his creative potential. The artist sees the woman as the absolute symbol of emotion and consequently the communicative form par excellence.
The aesthetic of the female face is a way to perceive and explore the surrounding reality, thus determining the very meaning of the pictorial representation: emotions, experiences, places, contexts, and everyday objects that are condensed in chromatic and stylistic choic- es that concern her face, skin, lips, and hair. These are meanings the artist explores and conveys by constantly researching the portrait technique.
THE RESEARCH
Attasit Pokpong's work is characterised by the never-end- ing search for the expressive potential of his paintings, which he plans by using watercolour on paper and then paints in oil on linen or cotton canvas. At times, the watercolour excludes its preparatory function, and becomes a tool directed towards the realisation of painting; when that is the case the artist uses a paper support that is larger than the sketches. Watercolour has always been Pokpong's favourite technique, because of the possibility of tracing, condensing, and dissolving the colours with water, thus creating transparencies, chiaroscuros, nuances, and delicate layering. Pos- sibilities that the author emphasises with the oil technique, adding strength to the expressive charge of his work, thanks to the use of bright and reflect- ing colours, to the contrasts between opaque and glossy hues, and to the minutiae of the details.
Generally speaking, inspired by Pop art and Surrealism, the faces of the women Pokpong paints are often represented in clear contrast with the sur- rounding environment, thus clearing the way for an interior study. The con- stant technical experimentation allows the artist to progress in his artistic research.
Indeed, if for Pokpong the woman's face remains the expressive vehicle of choice the window through which to explore the feelings of his subjects and the surrounding reality it is through the various techniques that he transcribes the emotions of his pictorial world.
