The colour of suffering

CELEBRATED self-taught artist Pratuang Emjaroen had long dreamed of opening his own gallery in the peaceful district of Tha Muang in Kanchanaburi province. He realised that dream in 2007 just after turning 72 only to discover shortly afterwards that he had cancer.

Pratuang, the 2005 National Artist, often said his paintings portrayed all that happens in the course of nature and life, be it ugliness or horror, cruelty or love, trouble or peace, and this is immediately obvious from the moment the visitor steps inside Emjaroen Gallery’s main building.

His paintings are arranged in chronological order and run from his 1963 oil “Still Life” in complex dashes of black to the colourful 2008 oil “Chemo City” that merges images of IV drips with the high-rise buildings Pratuang could see from his room in Chulalongkorn Hospital while undergoing chemotherapy.

“Dad had 12 chemo sessions but couldn’t paint anymore after the eighth,” his youngest daughter Srisilp tells the Sunday Nation. “Now the cancer is under control but he has Alzheimer’s. While he is still able to recognise his family, he can barely remember his works.” 

Srisilp, an art graduate from Srinakharinwirot University, is today the driving force behind the gallery. Her father bought the 8-rai, L-shaped plot with its stunning vista of the Mae Klong river in 1995 for his studio and gallery and was looking forward to moving from Bangkok to spend the rest of his life there.

The main “Circle” building now houses a selection of Pratuang’s paintings that are rotated every six months. Adjacent is the “Triangle” building which showcases the artist’s drawings and the paintings of his wife Boonying. The riverside “Dome” building is now Srisilp’s studio and she occasionally holds art workshops there.

“Dad first built a small studio-cum-home. The first ‘Circle’ was completed later in 1999. Determined to open the gallery in 2007 to mark his sixth cycle birthday, he placed an advertisement in a newspaper to announce a half-price sale of selected works. It cost about Bt20 million to set up this facility that now houses more than 100 of his paintings and over 1,000 drawings,” says Srisilp, 39.

His medical problems have prevented Pratuang, now 81, from moving to Kanchanaburi and he resides in his old home in Bangkok’s Bang Khae area.

“He can draw in a dew drop-like shape with a pen,” says his daughter. “I used to squeeze different colour paints on a palette for him to try with a paintbrush, but he couldn’t do it. I also gave him a drawing of a bird in the hope that he could follow the form, but he finally ended up with the dew-like shape.”

Pratuang has long been known for his talent in using a small brush to painstakingly paint dew drops. These are very much in evidence in his 1986 series “Dew Drop on Lotus Leaf” on display at the gallery. His lively rendition of the dew inspired his wife Boonying to paint and develop her own dew drops in pastels.

He described the early part of his career, from 1962 to ’67, as the age of “suffering”, with many of the paintings depicting the human agony and misery of the Vietnam War. His 1963 oil “Still Life” shows a water bottle on a table outlined in black on a largely black background. 

“For many years he couldn’t sell a single painting. Our family was very poor. We couldn’t afford to pay the electricity bills and lived in the dark for six months. His black painting reflected that sorrow and suffering,” Srisilp recalls.

Born to a family of poor fruit growers, Pratuang quit school in Grade 4 when his father passed away. He took whatever jobs were available to support the family until he turned 16, when he was given the chance to train as a commercial painter for an advertising firm. That experience enabled him to practise basic drawing and he went on to become a freelance commercial artist of movie posters. 

“After working eight years as a commercial artist, he began to question the value of his work. His old movie posters had to be repainted when a new movie was released. So there was nothing tangible for him to be proud of. Inspired by the biography of Vincent Van Gogh, he decided to take the long, rocky and obstacle-strewn path of a freelance artist.”

Pratuang devoted himself to learning directly from nature and understanding the relationships between nature and life. He successfully developed his own style by integrating the blazing source of sunlight in bright colour and bold line with other components in the solar system to reflect the truth of life. Among the best-known works from this symbolism period are the 1970 oils “Dharma” and “Falling Down”.

“Dad always loved to work outdoors, particularly under the sunlight, to absorb the energy of nature. He sometimes immersed himself in a lotus pond as a meditative way to be in a calm state.”

The student uprising of October 14, 1973 outraged Pratuang so much that he spent a full year creating the powerful mural “Dharma and Adharma” denouncing the slaughter of students and others who protested against military dictatorship. The symbolic Buddha head was pierced by a gun, the wheel of Dharma lay beneath a weapon and frangipani flowers were spattered with blood. 

Three years later, the October 9, 1976 massacre of pro-democracy students by right-wing paramilitaries pushed the artist to paint “Sacrifice (Fasting Buddha)”, for which he borrowed the story of the Lord Buddha trying to find enlightenment through deprivation. The head of Prince Siddhartha was largely enclosed in a white halo and there was a small black hole in his left shoulder. 

“There’s a small black hole symbolising a bullet hole in every work done in 1976,” Srisilp explains.

When the political turmoil died down, the artist returned to portraying nature in abstract form. He travelled to the countryside and his three months spent in the rice fields around Ayutthaya inspired him to paint the growth of rice in the series “The Grains of Virtue” (1979). The reflection of sunrise on the emerald waters of the Kwai River in Kanchanaburi influenced his “Lyric of Dawn” (1991) and the several months observing water lilies at Talay Noi in Phattalung were the source of inspiration for “Spiritual Essence in Lotus Leaf” (1999).

He later turned to expressionism using large paintbrushes and applying paints directly from the tubes onto the canvases. 

“He took only 20 minutes to finish the large 2005 painting ‘Power of Creation’. It required a lot of energy and strength for a man in his 70s,” his daughter says.

The energy of “Power of Creation” sets off beautifully the peaceful 2006 oil “Day and Night” with its distorted forms in dark and deep blue hues.

“This is the last painting he created from his travels before his battle with cancer. It was inspired by the shell of a mollusk he found at Cha-Am beach and the reflection of moonlight on the sea.”

Despite being in its ninth year of operation, the gallery is little known. Admission was free for the first four years and the gallery attracted about 30 people a month. When Srisilp introduced a modest entrance fee in early 2012, visitors dropped off to the point when often a whole month would go by without anyone coming to the gallery.

“I used to feel discouraged and ask myself what I was doing. I realise the gallery is not in a good location and that access isn’t easy. In addition there are no tourist attractions nearby to draw visitors. 

“But this gallery is my father’s lifework and I am determined to keep it alive. Every day, I clean up the gallery and prepare to greet visitors – even just one is welcome,” says Srisilp.

 

The writer’s trip was made possible with the support of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCa), which aims to honour Thailand’s great artists.

 

SEE THE MAGIC

Emjaroen Gallery is in Tha Muang district of Kanchanaburi province, about 100 kilometres from Bangkok.

It’s open Thursday to Monday, from 9am to 5pm. Call (086) 813 9616. Admission fee is Bt30 for Thais and Bt60 for foreigners.