Lot 60: SUCHAO SISGANES (Thailand 1926-1986)

Artist with cat and bowl
signed in Thai (lower left)
oil on board
16 1/2 x 18 in. (41 x 45 cm.)

Initial art studies began at the Silpa Suksa School, Bangkok, before graduating from the Silpakorn University with a Diploma in Fine Arts in 1959. Became an art lecturer in Chulalongkorn University before retiring to become a full time artist. His simple compositions and trademark textured paintings are quiet in mood but loud in nuances, branding this as his evocative style. Many of his works express his soul, sometimes in a literal form where he paints himself into the painting or in the case of the recurring motif of a house or a homely environment which is a representation of the artist's yearning for his very own house. The paintings take on an almost spiritual level as these paintings 'meditate' on the artist's material shortcomings.

Suchao Sisganes's simple world is constructed before us in this composition. The compositional elements are strikingly and intently rudimentary and rare. Working with his characteristic successive blotches of paint, he painted himself in the foreground holding a cat, with a table in the background and an empty bowl on it. The artist is clad with a monochromatic dark tone in accordance with the earthy tone of the table but highlighted with the lighter shade of the bowl, the cat and the artist's face.

Destitute and desolate for most part of his life, the artist is preoccupied with the material comforts of a house and food which he often expresses in his works. The physiognomic details of the portrait are unmistakably Suchao with the plaited hair and small eyes. His expression is reserved and almost guileless with no apparent hint of sadness even if he is placed in a bare room with an empty bowl that is suggestive of his poverty. His only companion is the cat in his arm which, almost blends into the arms of the artist as it is shaded in the same tone.

Strikingly barren, the interior of Suchao invites the viewer into a realm entirely cut off from the outside world. His bare yet intriguingly constructed interior plays with the rules of perspective that create an interaction with the artist, his space and the objects in the interior. One is acutely conscious of an 'interior' as it is defined and constrained. The tension between the richly textured surface and the absence of illusionistic light with the comfortingly familiar signs of life - the artist, the table, the bowl and the cat - leaves the viewer struggling to read the painting, not knowing where reality ends and abstraction begins. Particularly when abstraction is also hinted at the non-realistic portrayal of Suchao himself: his own form is slightly distorted and flattened on the surface of the work.

The ambiguity is deliberate. The physical representation is an extension of the internal state of the artist, materially deprived, he is emotionally isolated from the outside world as he continues to be 'boxed' in the interior, impoverished as it is - is the whole world itself to the artist.

Suchao is a unique individual amongst the Thai artists. Not concerning himself with Buddhist-inspired images nor the picturesque landscape of the country, he creates a personal world with daily, mundane concerns of an individual in his works, which most people could understand. The composition of his works is often of simple, geometric construction that speaks of neatness and cleanliness, which in turn conveys a curious sense of stillness and transience. It is this atmospheric element that lures the viewer further into the metaphysical world of the artist, wishing to probe further into the sadness and loneliness of Suchao, thus making the process a very intimate and engaging one.