Thai artist Pakpoom Silaphan, a member of a new breed of international Pop artists that have taken influence from the old with regard to Pop Art’s visual rules, but, as with anything populist, the message and tone is very much in keeping with now.
Silaphan’s art is a modern form of pop art. Firmly rooted in the love of graphic design, bold colour and brand that influenced Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, but with a quite literal undercurrent of the decay and distress that the failure of the Capitalist dream to grow and grow infinitely has wrought.
He examines notions of globalisation and mass consumerism by painting on found objects such as old metal signs and wooden Pepsi and Coca-Cola crates that are reminiscent of Warhol’s Brillo Boxes.
Collaging and painting portraits of his favourite artists and influences from Frida Kahlo to Dali onto the old advertising boards and storage boxes Silaphan turns them into sculptural works of art – converting the original artist’s themselves into global brands.
Much of the materials Silaphan collects are from the many years he spent in Thailand and a key area of interest for him is the infiltration of Western imagery into Southeast Asia and the universality of some images and symbols, regardless of what they may be trying to sell.
