Ponnapa Prakkamakul
Boston, USA - Artists Ponnapa Prakkamakul is a busy artist who had a lot of work with exhibitions on the horizon. She opened up her portfolio to us, and we loved it so much that we couldn’t pick just one! Her work considers the environment, light, and space. It’s thoughtful and moving. You’re going to love it.
From the submission:
As a painter and a landscape architect, site investigation and immersion play an important role in Ponnapa’s work. She explores sites and environments using the painting process as a tool to experience, understand, and form connections with her surroundings. Ponnapa art reflects her immersive experience engaging with the landscape through the performative acts of searching, studying, and collecting natural materials to paint with, as well as sketching in situ. In the studio, the collected materials such as soil, plant, groundwater, and rust from found objects are applied on paper as the painting medium depicting the landscape scenes where they were assembled from. These natural materials represent the real colors of the earth and texture of the leaves connecting the viewers back to the site. This painting process not only creates a connection between Ponnapa and the site but also fosters a deeper connection to new places as an immigrant – through art she cultivate her sense of place in this new land.
Beyond Plant Earth : Rethinking the Boundary
This work attempts to break the conventional perception of landscape and challenges the way we think about space. Starting with a question of how to use a painting process to create an intimate connection with the unknown landscape of the outer space, Ponnapa traveled to San Pedro de Atacama Desert in Chile, an area known for its extreme arid environment resemble the Martian landscape, to search for the answer. For three weeks, she stayed in the community of Coyo with Likan Antai people, the indigenous people of the Atacama Desert, observing their relationship with the surrounding landscape. This exhibition invites the viewers to join Ponnapa’s journey and explore the imaginary landscape above and below beyond the Planet Earth.
The Butterfly Effect
The mural is located at Mahaniyom which is a Thai tapas bar and restaurant serving flavorful Thai food in small portions (check them out here). This mural is on a restroom's wall, a place where human waste are released. The intention is to make the viewers aware of their action and how to effect a larger system as a whole.
Universe Within
In October 2019, I observed the color of the sky during the sun rise at the Atacama Desert and made a series of en plein air small pastel drawings to show how the changes of the lighting effects the color of the surrounding mountain. In a studio, the small drawings were redrawn into a panoramic scenes of light looking towards North, East, South, and West. Later, the panoramic scenes were collaged together using sterographic projection method to create a one single image of the whole sun rise moment. Universe Within is an interpretation of that experience expressing in a three dimensional form with real motion. The rotation speed of the piece refers to the real speed of the Sun when rotates across the sky which is 128 second per degree using a modified 1 RMP gear motor (to achieve 0.25 RPM).