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ECLIPSE

H Gallery is very pleased to announce a solo exhibition by Jedsada Tangtrakulwong, an artist based in northern Thailand and who previously worked on site-specific projects at H Project Space in 2011 and H Gallery Chiang Mai in 2014. Eclipse continues to evolve Jedsada’s ambitious approach to installation while introducing a recent interest in the production of objects, often by laborious methods, and also photography.

Eclipse transforms H Gallery into an immersive experience with sharp contrasts of light and dark. Exploring a central concern with way finding, where experience segues into metaphor and vice-versa, visitors move through the darkened interior and encounter spot-lit icons and images of disappearance and loss.

Moving through darkness towards light carries profound metaphysical implications but the installation allows for a subtle politics of material interest. The central part of Eclipse is nearly one hundred blackened books that the artist created as a result of damage caused to his belongings due to a flooding of his storage space in Bangkok during October of last year. That month was a momentous one for Thailand as it saw the passing of beloved Rama IX. Drawing an analogy between personal and national experience due to the forces of time and nature, Jedsada’s coating of the books with black ink represents a numbness and the speechlessness that ensues from unexpected loss. The blackened books preserve such and thus possess an ambivalence about possible futures; and the colour black carries manifold significance.

Last year also saw the artist relocate to Chiang Mai. A series of photographs depict the rough-hewn hinterlands of the city, pathways into unknown territories and the loss of securities. These frame the strange and unknown as Jedsada continues to refract personal experience through anxious realities that face his country. Eclipse includes a desk with his current works-in-progress and offers speculations on new futures.

Thailand’s highly regulated order of public symbolism has just completed a particularly strenuous year. Way finding amidst a darkened present carries an ambiguity that can be both exhilarating and ominous. Eclipse acutely captures this ambiguity and, somewhat urgently, insists on the importance of the artist for critical reflection on relations between experience, understanding and the politics of aesthetics.

Jedsada Tangtrakulwong is currently based in Chiang Mai where he lectures at Chiang Mai University. He graduated from San Francisco Art Institute in the US and the Slade School of Fine Art in London. Jedsada’s group exhibitions include Monologue Dialogue 4: Mysticism and Insecurity (2017), The Koppel Project Baker Street, London; Continuum: Acculturating (2016), The Art Center, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok; Micro City Lab (2016), Indie Art Hall Gong and Arko Art Center, Seoul; Secret Archipelago (2015), Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Southeast Asia Platform (2014), Art Stage Singapore, Singapore; and Riverscapes IN FLUX, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manila. His solo exhibitions include Adjust (2016), La Chambre Blanche, Quebec; Shatter (2014), H Gallery, Chiang Mai; Downfall (2013), Bangkok University Gallery, Bangkok; Twist (2011), H Project Space, Bangkok; Stand and Fall (2009), KunstDoc Project Space, KunstDoc Gallery, Seoul; and Passage (2007), Tadu Contemporary Art, Bangkok. Jedsada’s awards include a Silpa Bhirasri Creativity Grant (2012) and Asia Pacific Artist Fellowship Program (2009) in Korea.

 

Jedsada Tangtrakulwong - ECLIPSE
December 1 2017 – January 25 2018