Pinaree Sanpitak

Mats and Pillows and Vessels

April 13, 2017 — May 20, 2017


ENLARGE

The Mats and The Pillows (detail), 2017

reeds, pa-nan pandanus, lam-jiek pandanus, kra-jood, bamboo, rattan, dye, fabric, kapok, and cotton covers

dimensions variable; as installed 309 x 264 in. (785 x 670.5 cm)

120 Vessels, 200-2001

120 drawings, candle wax and charcoal on paper

12 x 15 3/4 in (30 x 40 cm) each

ENLARGE

120 Vessels 1, 2000-2001

candle wax and charcoal on paper

12 x 15 3/4 in (30 x 40 cm)

ENLARGE

120 Vessels 11, 2000-2001

candle wax and charcoal on paper

12 x 15 3/4 in (30 x 40 cm)

ENLARGE

120 Vessels 58, 2000-2001

candle wax and charcoal on paper

12 x 15 3/4 in (30 x 40 cm)

ENLARGE

In the Jars 1, 2016-2017

pencil on Mohachi paper

22 x 22 in (56 x 56 cm)

ENLARGE

In the Jars 10, 2016-2017

pencil on Mohachi paper

22 x 22 in (56 x 56 cm)

ENLARGE

In the Jars 12, 2016-2017

pencil on Mohachi paper

22 x 22 in (56 x 56 cm)

ENLARGE

The Body 1, 1995-1996

pastel on paper

14 x 20 in (36 x 51 cm)

ENLARGE

The Egg, 1995-1996

pastel on paper

14 x 20 in (36 x 51 cm)

ENLARGE

Gold Breast, 1995-1996

gold leaf, pastel, and charcoal on paper

12 x 18 in (30.5 x 45.75 cm)

ENLARGE

The Body 2, 1997-1998

charcoal, pastel on paper

14 ¼ x 20 in. (36 x 51 cm)

ENLARGE

Womanly Bodies 1, 1999-2000

pastel, pencil on paper

20 x 14 in. (51 x 36 cm)

ENLARGE

Womanly Bodies 2, 1999-2000

pastel on paper

20 x 14 in (51 x 36 cm)

ENLARGE

Womanly Bodies 3, 1999-2000

pastel on paper

20 x 14 in (51 x 36 cm)

ENLARGE

Womanly Bodies 4, 1999 - 2000

pastel on paper

19 1/2 x 25 1/2 in (49.5 x 65 cm)

ENLARGE

The Mound 1, 2000-2001

charcoal on paper

17 x 14 in. (43 x 36 cm)

ENLARGE

The Mound 2, 2000-2001

acrylic and charcoal on paper

17 x 14 in (43 x 35.8 cm)

ENLARGE

The Mound 3, 2000 -2001

charcoal on paper

29 3/4 x 22 1/4 in (75.5 x 56.5 cm)

ENLARGE

The Body 3, 2000-2001

charcoal, pastel on paper

14 x 17 in. (36 x 43 cm)

ENLARGE

The Body 4, 2000-2001

candle wax, charcoal on paper

16 ½ x 23 ¼ in. (42 x 59 cm)

ENLARGE

The Vessel 1, 2000-2001

acrylic, pastel on paper

8 ¼ x 11 ¾ in. (21 x 30 cm)

ENLARGE

The Vessel 2, 2000-2001

acrylic, pastel, and pencil on paper

8 x 11 in (20 x 27.75 cm)

ENLARGE

The Vessel 3, 2000-2001

acrylic, pastel, pencil on paper

9 ½ x 12 ¼ in. (24 x 31 cm)

ENLARGE

The Vessel 4, 2000-2001

gold leaf, charcoal on paper

11 x 12 in. (28 x 30 cm)

ENLARGE

The Vessel 5, 2000-2001

acrylic, pastel, pencil on paper

30 ¼ x 22 ¼ in. (77 x 56.5 cm)

ENLARGE

The Vessel 6, 2000-2001

charcoal, pastel on paper

27 ¼ x 54 in. (69 x 137 cm)

ENLARGE

Offering Vessel, 2002-2003

monoprint

11 x 14 in. (28 x 35.5 cm)

ENLARGE

Breast Fruits, 2005-2006

charcoal and pencil on paper

24 x 18 in (61 x 45.25 cm)

ENLARGE

Quietly Floating: Breast Clouds 3, 2008-2009

acrylic on Shikishi paper

9 ½ x 10 ¾ in. (24 x 27.25 cm)

ENLARGE

Breasts and Clouds, 2013-2014

pencil and pastel on Mohachi

22 x 22 in (56 x 56 cm)

Installation View of "Mats and Pillows and Vessels" at Tyler Rollins Fine Art, April 13 - May 20, 2017

 

 

Installation View of "Mats and Pillows and Vessels" at Tyler Rollins Fine Art, April 13 - May 20, 2017

 

 

Installation View of "Mats and Pillows and Vessels" at Tyler Rollins Fine Art, April 13 - May 20, 2017

 

 

Installation View of "Mats and Pillows and Vessels" at Tyler Rollins Fine Art, April 13 - May 20, 2017

 

 

Installation View of "Mats and Pillows and Vessels" at Tyler Rollins Fine Art, April 13 - May 20, 2017

 

 

Installation View of "Mats and Pillows and Vessels" at Tyler Rollins Fine Art, April 13 - May 20, 2017

 

 

Installation View of "Mats and Pillows and Vessels" at Tyler Rollins Fine Art, April 13 - May 20, 2017

 

 

Installation View of "Mats and Pillows and Vessels" at Tyler Rollins Fine Art, April 13 - May 20, 2017

 

 

Works

INSTALLATION VIEWS

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Mats and Pillows and Vessels (April 13 – May 20, 2017), Pinaree Sanpitak’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery, has two distinct but interrelated parts. The Vessels comprises the first overview of more than twenty years of her works on paper, culminating in a new series of drawings, In the Jars. Exhibited for the first time, the installation The Mats and The Pillows was conceived in conjunction with The Roof, a large-scale, hanging fabric installation, commissioned by Arts Brookfield, on view at the Brookfield Place Winter Garden in Battery Park City from April 19 – July 5.

Pinaree is one of the most compelling and respected Thai artists of her generation, and her work can be counted among the most powerful explorations of women’s experience in all of Southeast Asia. Her primary inspiration over the past twenty-five years has been the female body, distilled to its most basic forms and imbued with an ethereal spirituality. Her work is informed by a quiet minimalism that reflects her training in Japan. Often called a feminist or Buddhist artist, she resists such easy categorizations, preferring to let her work speak to each viewer directly, to the heart and soul, with the most basic language of form, color, and texture. Pinaree works in a wide variety of media – ranging from painting, sculpture, installation, textiles, ceramics, and glass, to performance and culinary arts – but some of her most intimate, subtle work is done on paper, often small in scale.

The exhibition presents a selection of works on paper that traces the evolution of the body and vessel motifs in her oeuvre, particularly the abstracted female torso and breast. For many years, and certainly since the birth of her son in 1993, a central focus of her work has been the female breast, which she relates both to imagery from the natural world, such as clouds and plants, and to the iconic forms of the Buddhist stupa (shrine) and offering bowl. Representative works are featured from several of her major series, including Breast Works (1994), Confident Bodies (1997-8), Womanly Bodies (1999), Breast Stupas (2002), Breast Fruits (2005-6), Breasts and Clouds (2007-8), and Quietly Floating (2010). A key work from her Vessels and Mounds series, 120 Vessels (2000-1), is exhibited here in a partial installation. Each abstracted vessel motif was drawn with three long drips from a lit candle, as part of a meditative practice. The vessel motif takes on new forms with In the Jars (2017), a series of graphite drawings based on a group of terracotta jars Pinaree designed in homage to traditional Thai water storage pots and the sense of nurture, receptivity, and security they evoke. Each functions as a portrait of a particular form and mood.

This selection of works on paper, with its bodies and vessels, is in dialogue with The Mats and The Pillows, an installation in which visitors are invited to sit on an array of traditional, natural fiber mats and pillows, incorporating their own bodies into the artwork, grounded and at rest. Pinaree relates that the installation “takes off from a Thai expression, ‘one mat one pillow,’ referring to immigrants, mainly Chinese, coming to the country with nothing and hoping to pursue a new life. My ancestors also came to Thailand this way.” Pinaree gathered mats from different parts of Thailand, along with one from her own home, arranging them in an overlapping collage, so that instead of demarcating individual territories they create a communal space in which boundaries are broken down. “I lay them out as a site to share, to pause, to stay, to exchange,” she explains. “There should always be space for all, for hope and opportunities.” Scattered cushions allow visitors the opportunity to make themselves comfortable however they see fit. The installation evokes a sense of home, a nurturing, secure, intimate space. The Roof, its counterpart across town, also creates a sense of comfort and solace. A composition of translucent fabric canopies collaged among the towering palm trees in the Winter Garden’s expansive public space, it provides a temporary sanctuary, inserting a shared “roof over the head.”

EXHIBITION REVIEWS

Blouin ArtInfo, Pinaree Sanpitak’s Mesmerizing Meditations at Tyler Rollins

May, 2017


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Art in America, Exhibitions the Lookout

May, 2017


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The New York Times, 10 Galleries to Visit Now in Chelsea

April, 2017


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Arte Fuse, Gallery Hopping on Opening Night in Chelsea

April, 2017


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GENERAL PRESS

Hofstra University Museum, Converging Voices Gender and Identity, Pinaree Sanpitak

May, 2017


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Urban Glass, CONVERSATION: Pinaree Sanpitak on Her Newest Public Artwork that Blends Fiberglass and Raw Silk

April, 2017


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Artnet, 18 Public Art Shows to Get Excited About in NYC This Spring

January, 2017


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The New York Times, Pinaree Sanpitak: ‘Ma-lai’

October, 2015


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Artillery, Pinaree Sanpitak: Ma-Lai at Tyler Rollins Fine Art

September, 2015


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Bangkok Post, The sex ceiling

September, 2015


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Prestige, Body Art

May, 2015


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Art Loft, Why Southeast Asian Art Now?

December, 2014


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The Blade, ‘Breast artist’ brings exhibit to the Toledo Museum of Art

November, 2014


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Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Collection+ Pinaree Sanpitak

September, 2014


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Artshub, The female breast inspires contemporary art

September, 2014


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The Straits Times, Art to smell and cuddle

August, 2014


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The Phnom Penh Post, An artistic tale of two cities

July, 2014


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The Wall Street Journal, Meet Thailand’s ‘Breast Artist’

January, 2014


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Singapore Art Museum – Sensorium 360°

2014


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Art Asia Pacific, Pinaree Sanpitak, Temporary Insanity

October, 2013


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Los Angeles Magazine, DO: ART: Look But Don’t Nap in These Hammocks

September, 2013


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Art Asia Pacific, Finding Balance: Interview with Pinaree Sanpitak

August, 2013


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Austin American-Statesman, Last week to catch ‘Temporary Insanity’

June, 2013


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Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Pinaree Sanpitak: Hanging by a Thread

June, 2013


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Austin Museum Of Art – Arthouse, Temporary Insanity, Pinaree Sanpitak

April, 2013


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The Huffington Post, 10 International Artists To Watch In 2013

January, 2013


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The Huffington Post, 2013 Art Preview: The 25 Most Anticipated Exhibitions Of The New Year

December, 2012


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The Sydney Morning Herald, Best-ever Biennale as record audiences engage with the unexpected

September, 2012


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Blouin Art Info, Sydney Biennale Highlights, From Interactive Architecture to Animated Aboriginal Paintings

July, 2012


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The Sydney Morning Herald, Titles will unlock Biennale’s beauty

June, 2012


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Moira Roth’s Gleanings, Gleanings #15: Pinaree Sanpitak

April, 2012


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18th Biennale of Sydney

February, 2012


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Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art, Thai Artists, Resisting the Age of Spectacle

2012


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The Examiner San Francisco, Modern ‘Buddha Presence’ at Asian Art Museum

September, 2011


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Art Asia Pacific – Questionnaire, Pinaree Sanpitak

September, 2011


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Art Journal, Art without History? Southeast Asian Artists and Their Communities in the Face of Geography

July, 2011


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C-Arts, Negotiating Home, History and Nation: 2 Decades of SE Asian Contemporary Art

March, 2011


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Treasures (Asian Art Museum of San Francisco Magazine), Here/Not Here

January, 2011


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Roundabout exhibition catalogue

September, 2010


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Art in America, Bangkok Report

June, 2010


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C-Arts, Pinaree Sanpitak, “Quietly Floating”

April, 2010


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Bangkok Post, Femininity on a Plate

March, 2009


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C-Arts, Pinaree Sanpitak: Art through the Breast

March, 2008


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Global Feminisms, Women Artists Then and Now: Painting, Sculpture, and the Image of the Self

2007


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Art Asia Pacific, Pinaree Sanpitak

January, 2006


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Temporary Insanity, Pinaree Sanpitak

2004


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Flavours – Thai Contemporary Art, Pinaree Sanpitak

2003


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Art Asia Pacific, Pinaree Sanpitak

June, 2002


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Artwise, Pinaree Sanpitak

2002


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Asian Art News – Thailand Feature, Making Offerings

November, 1999


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Art Asia Pacific, Body and Soul, Pinaree Sanpitak’s art of life

September, 1999


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Art in Southeast Asia 1997: Glimpses in the Future

1997


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Southeast Asian Art Today, Pinaree Sanpitak

1996


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