JULIETA by Sudaporn Teja

People's Gallery, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre

Bangkok, Thailand

August 2023

​

A present becomes a promise

A wish becomes a vale

The roses bloomed and browned

 

​Julieta is a memoir of a lifepath in pursuit of purpose, as well as a promise between the artist and her late lamented friend. The exhibition embraces the relationship between the physicality/representation of an object and its lifetime and the meaning of existence in relation to exploring an essence. All arose from a bouquet of Julieta roses given by her friend before his departure. It led the artist to search for the meaning of one lost life and the key to unlocking the pain. The pilgrimage has taken her to the hierological, the psychological, the therapeutical, and back to the bouquet builder. The florist gave the artist a flower vase that made her ponder and analogize a state of feeling overwhelmed to water-filled to the brim.

 

Sudaporn Teja deracinates an aide-mémoire to inscribe timestamps by an interdisciplinary approach, encouraging an open-ended question about restraints and the purpose of being. In Julieta, the exhibition features paintings, video, photograph, and installation art, devoted to her friend, who gave her that bouquet of Julieta roses as promised. Her oeuvres open the dialogue of binary oppositions – flowering/withering, with/without, single/societal. Video and photograph envisage the action to object on different occasions, with poetry rendition in reverence to the perished flowers. The site-specific installation proposes the pellucid perspective, unveiling the juxtaposition of shape, volume, space, and the interdependence/ transformation of objects. Monochromatic abstract painting is an act of remnant ceremony, unraveling varieties of human emotions during the journey of exploring the essence. From sunset to sunrise, rainbow shades after rain slowly fade away; waiting to be reborn.

 

Perhaps we keep the difficult truth inside the sharp prickles of a rose, as he always mentions a mantra, "Truth alone triumphs, not untruth."