MIT JAI INN | UNTITLED 無題

ARNDT Gallery, Berlin

Private European Collection

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ARNDT畫廊，柏林

私人收藏，歐洲

Berlin, ARNDT Gallery, Traitor and Tradition, 20 September - 18 October 2014 

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柏林，ARNDT畫廊，「叛逆與傳統」，2014年9月20日至10月18日

Based in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand, Mit Jai Inn (b. 1960) is regarded by many as a seminal figure in Thai contemporary art, defying traditional boundaries in his conceptual and physically enthralling works. Untitled 2014, marks the Thai artist’s auction debut and exemplifies Mit’s unorthodox practice. In the late 1980s, Mit left Thailand to study at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria and worked in the studio of renowned abstract artist Franz West.

Untitled 2014 questions conventional notions of painting and is a product of the artist’s physically rigorous yet meditative working process. He manipulates a richly textured canvas into a standing scroll, creating a hybrid state between painting and sculpture. Mit applies, thickens, erases and overlays layers of oil paint onto meters of unstretched canvas, leaving them to dry in the form of scrolls to hold their shape. This large piece appears to unfurl before the viewer’s eyes, welcoming the viewer’s thorough physical participation. The inner surface of the scroll as the scroll is encrusted with blothes and features graphic strips of alternating bright colors and subtle pastels.

The artist refers to this series created for a show in Berlin as a site-specific memorial “Both consciously and unconsciously, they are a recognition of the atmosphere and liveliness of the Berlin I knew…retrospective and blurred memories…a vibration from a distance.” This delightfully engaging work serves as an invitation to its viewer to intimately enjoy its color, form and function.