A dance with the plants

Mangosteen was mulched to create the hues of "The Earth (Brown)".

A garden has blossomed at Bangkok's 100 Tonson Gallery in the botanical art of Yanawit Kunchaethong - abstract paint¬ings and monoprints created entirely with organic plants.

Visitors will find themselves in fields of anchan (butterfly pea), magluea (Siamese ebony), kanni¬ka (night jasmine) and kamngoh (lipstick plant), but all have become part of the art through Yanawit's process of extracting pig¬ments from flora to make "organic prints".

The process is the result of sev¬eral years' research and experi¬mentation, and he believes no one else has managed to do this before. It earned him a Creative Invention Award from the National Research Council.

"The pigments have to be extracted from fresh plants and flowers," says Yanawit, the 50yearold chief of Silpakorn University's Department of Graphic Arts.

"If the plants are wilted you get a different colour. I experimented with many techniques for squeez¬ing, pressing and extracting."

The exhibition on pinetreerimmed Soi Tonson is called "Tonmai Baiyah" - trees and grass - and continues until July 8.

"Brown Painting 5" is a canvas layered in a dark brown derived from the maplub (persimmon), its cracked texture reminiscent of parched land. Next to it hangs "Brown Painting 2", this one a lighter tone from a mix of mangos¬teen peel and arabic glue.

"Mangosteen has a hard rind that has to be softened by soaking it in water, and then it's pounded in a mortar and squeezed to get the desired colour," Yanawit says.

"The seeds of the kamngoh give a vivid red colour, but you have to soak them in warm water before rubbing them onto a sur¬face. The fruit of the magluea tree gives a black shade after pounding it in a mortar and squeezing it.

"The paints extracted from magluea, khamin [turmeric] and kamngoh could be kept for years in a refrigerator."

The extracted pigments are spread or dropped onto an offset press coated with arabic glue, honey and leaves, then left to dry for a few days. Then a moistened sheet of paper is placed over the top and prints are made.

The exhibition includes the colour charts that Yanawit painstakingly assembled, detailing the characteristics of every kind of plant and their individual parts, the best method of extraction and the fluctuations in hue depending on variable conditions.

"These artworks, I believe, could last far longer than 10 years," he says. "The colour might fade a bit, so they shouldn't be hung in direct sunlight."

Yanawit had a ready source for his botanical studies: his father's 108rai Kunchaethong Herb Garden in Chaam, Phetchaburi.

The site provided most of the plants from which he extracted his paints - and an appreciation for natural approaches as well. Yanawit knew all too well that printmaking's usual reliance on chemical pig¬ments and acids can be harmful to personal health and that of the environment too.

"Now if I catch the smell of oil paint I get a runny nose and start sneezing. I still have to teach my students all of the printing tech¬niques, but I prefer silkscreening with watercolours, which have a softer smell."

Yanawit has been using plants as an art medium since 1998. As his contribution to the "Krungthep Muang Fah Amorn" ("Bangkok - City of Marvels") project that year, he set out 1,919 potted fah talai jon along the walkway at Romaneenart Park.

Anyone was free to take one home, and Yanawit was playing with the word jon, meaning "thief", in the plant's name, which trans¬lates as "the sky strikes thieves", although fah talai jon is much appreciated for its ability to soothe indigestion, sore throats, coughs and colds. The double meaning alluded to the fact that the park had been the site of Bangkok Prison.

In 1999's "City on the Move" project he covered a floor with 50 teen ped farang (calabash) plants. The name translates literally as "Western duck's foot", due to the shape of its leaves. The exhibition looked like a flock of ducks walking around; the message was a warning about Western values invading Asia.

For the "EuroVision" project in 2000, Yanawit's installation was a Spanish cherry tree being nurtured with Thai cow manure. How, he was asking, can something with for¬eign roots grow so well in Thailand?

"My work aims to reflect the relationship between nature and people, and also between my father and me," he says of his latest endeavours.

"I've experimented with flowers, grains, leaves and rinds, and now I want to try using different kinds of roots."

Yanawit will conduct a workshop on organic printmaking at the gallery this Saturday at 1pm.

100 Tonson Gallery, on Soi Tonson off Ploenchit Road, is open Thursday to Sunday from 11am to 7pm. Call (02) 684 1527 or visit 100TonsonGallery.com.

Khetsirin Pholdhampalit

 The Nation