Past Solo Exhibition
Natee Utarit | Déjà vu: Buddha is Hiding 28.09.2024 — 01.12.2024
Information
Event has ended
28 September to 1 December 2024
About The Exhibition
Déjà vu stages a confrontation between cultures. Through a suite of juxtapositions where the sacred images of Buddhism encounter the fading grandeur of the West, Natee Utarit places his interests at the fore: where is the place of the Asian ideal within a dominant Western ideological hegemony?
The striking collection of prints and paper cast sculptures—at times embellished with graffiti—reveal history’s fraught position between sanctums of the holy and mires of the profane. With print employed as the chief medium for inviting commiserations with his speculations, the images take on a different incarnation from his prior paintings. While continuing to bear the gravitas of his considerations, the reproducibility of print suggests their urgent need for dissemination.
Utarit's practice is rooted in the interplay between Eastern and Western traditions, mirroring his personal journey through these diverse cultural landscapes. Central to Déjà vu is the concept of cultural hybridity and the negotiation of identity within hegemonic structures. Utarit’s work embodies a double vision—a reflection of his experience navigating Western art's influence on his Thai heritage. His meticulously detailed prints and layered symbolism act as palimpsests of cultural memory, where the past and present, East and West, collide.
– John Tung, exhibition cutator
About the artist
Natee Utarit
Residencies in 2007, 2023
Natee Utarit (1970, born and based in Bangkok, Thailand) draws from cultural iconographies across Western and Eastern traditions to confront questions of truth, power and identity. Often through the medium of painting, his work examines the influence of Western hegemony on artistic canons and history, particularly in the context of postcolonial Southeast Asia.
Utarit belonged to a generation of artists in Thailand whose formal art training in local universities was dominated by classical European principles and colonialist sentiments, ones that undermined the lived experience of the students’ personal heritage and sociopolitical landscape. This influenced his interest in making images that wrestled with the dualities of East and West, skepticism and faith, new and old. In his renowned series The Altarpieces (2012), Utarit employs Renaissance painting genres such as portraiture, landscape and still life to create large-scale polyptychs that feature an elaborate mix of cultural and religious icons. They invite viewers to consider the plural and often conflicting existence of cultural realities.
Utarit obtained his BFA in Graphic Arts at Silpakorn University, Bangkok in 1991. His work is held in numerous collections including the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; Singapore Art Museum; and Bangkok University.
Notable solo exhibitions include Déjà vu (2022), Art Centre Silpakorn University, Bangkok; Déjà vu (2019), Fondazion Made in Cloister, Naples; Optimism is Ridiculous (2018), National Gallery of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur; Optimism is Ridiculous (2017), National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta; Optimism is Ridiculous (2017), Ayala Museum, Makati City; Illustration of the Crisis (2013), Bangkok University Gallery; and After Painting (2010), Singapore Art Museum. The artist has also participated in major international festivals including We Do Not Dream Alone (2021), 1st Asia Society Triennial, New York; Beyond Bliss (2018), 1st Bangkok Art Biennale; Everyday Life (2013), 4th Asian Art Biennial, Taichung; and APT3 (1999), 3rd Asia Pacific Triennial, Brisbane.
Utarit has had two residencies at the STPI Workshop in 2007 and 2023 respectively, resulting in the exhibitions BMW Young Asian Artists Series: Eric Chan, Heman Chong, Lieko Shiga, Natee Utarit and Yim Ja-Hyuk (2007) and Déjà vu: Buddha is Hiding (2024).
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