Dhanut Tungsuwan

The morning of the 03/07/2561, it’s 11am and we’re an hour late as always heading to the otherside of the city towards the Chao Phraya river ; on our way to meet our young and up and coming artist who paints lonely surrealistic landscapes of other-wordly formations in his Bangkok studio. Lit up by a red neon 3001 sign seen from the underpassage of a busy bridge (The ‘3001’ alluding to a time in the future that we are inevitably and exponentially heading towards..) I’ll get into that in a minute. Dhanut Tungsuwan represents the new generation of creators, who with his charisma and undeniable talent delivers an insightful interpretation of the times. Well versed within the admix of creative platforms available today, in this moment, his expanse reaches us with variant coloured strokes of oil on canvas tradition.

Visually striking with exaggerated nuances within the shadows and familiar ethereal landscape shapes that leaves the viewer perplexed as to exactly where or when does this moment depict. Powerful in its mystery, it almost begs more questions than yields answers. All tied up into a beautiful series of laboratory like snapshots of alien terrain candidates ready to be chosen for some futuristic terraforming and colonizing species.

Maybe it’s us?

Dhanut’s inspiration comes from the observations of human kinds development and now coexistence to the digital revolution, he explains, “Having experienced the exponential increase of connectivity in the world, via digital and technology as a child and now as a practising painter, places me in the middle of the maelstrom of the age of reproduction. This new found connectivity within society has sparked a reaction and change in the human psyche that spans far and wide. Much like the romantic movement was a retort against the industrial revolution, my territory of practise resides within the observation of the reaction towards the ‘digital revolution’.”

The symbiotic like relationship between humankind and this living and evolving platform we’ve created is growing at such a rapid and exponential rate we seem to become more and more devotedly dislodged. With the digital revolution, much information has lost its substance, consuming and retaining information at such a pace that a lot of that information is lost and overlooked, over saturation of images and information sort of creates a realm of Amnesia. Where we kind of know everything but then again don’t really know anything, Dhanut explains,

“WE ARE ALLOWED TO FORGET WHAT WE DON’T ALREADY REALLY KNOW.”

A pretty daunting thought to the direction of our evolution.

The landscapes and places represented in the painting in “Formulated Frontiers” exists solely in the realm of Physical and Information blackout. These landscapes also allude to notions of Romanticism, or perhaps its reinterpretation in a more contemporary context. The remoteness of these landscapes and spaces also represent the hidden solidarity and false sense of belonging which resides in the underlying emotions born of this newfound connectivity in our modern society. Perhaps a precursor of a more lonely, darker time to come, welcome to 3001.