Keep calm and embroider on
Artist Narissara Pianwimungsa’s exhibition ‘Unnamed Tremble’ makes use of embroidery to explore the power of nature and the chaos that Covid-19 has created in our minds
Situated next to the Chao Phraya River, visitors who travel by boat to The Jam Factory can experience either a powerful or peaceful river. In her latest exhibition titled “Unnamed Tremble”, artist Narissara Pianwimungsa explores her feelings about the power of nature along with her chaotic state of mind as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The exhibition displays 12 embroideries, which Narissara designed in 2017 and 2018, and two fabric installations — The Landscape Of Nowhere (2018) and Unnamed Thoughts (2020). While The Landscape Of Nowhere features giant balls with eyes embroidered on calico, Unnamed Thoughts makes use of calico cones hanging from a ceiling. When visitors walk past Unnamed Thoughts, it is like they are walking through a river.
“The exhibition is site-specific, meaning it is designed for a particular location. Since The Jam Factory is located nearby the Chao Phraya River, I used it as inspiration for my latest project and mixed in my experiences related to the ongoing pandemic, which is a crisis that has changed our old way of thinking. During the peak period of the pandemic and lockdown, I was working on a fabric installation and the situation completely shook us. We were worried because we had never experienced anything like this before, so I wanted to express the idea of balance through Unnamed Thoughts and decided to hang cone sculptures from the ceiling. When visitors walk into the gallery, the cone sculptures may shake or move, similar to how we tremble inside because we do not know when the pandemic will end,” explained Narissara.
Unnamed Thoughts was adapted from a fabric installation titled The Parallel World, which Narissara created last year when she was an artist-in-residence in Yokohama, Japan. Since The Parallel World was designed before the pandemic, its cone sculptures are stuck on the floor because at that time, she felt at peace and secure, however, the cone sculptures in Unnamed Thoughts hang from the ceiling to represent her feeling of instability amid the pandemic.
After Narissara graduated with a Master’s in painting from Silpakorn University, she worked to create new art and took part in several exhibitions over a period of eight years. However, she later began to explore other techniques and started working in other fields as well. For example, Narissara tried to create graffiti with a street artist and she also translated and wrote books. However, after some time, she realised that she liked embroidery the most. Yet, her start in embroidery was heart-wrenching since she had to sew every pocket shut on her father’s clothes — according to a Chinese belief — after he passed away.
“There are many multidisciplinary artists today such as Yoko Ono, who is a singer, songwriter and multimedia artist. Today, there are many ways an artist is able to express himself or herself. When I sewed the pockets on my father’s clothes, I felt it was emotional. I wondered if I could use sewing to express my feelings and ideas, so I decided to create an embroidery project and use it to request a Silpa Bhirasri Creativity Grant which I eventually received. After that, I constantly worked on embroidery. Currently, the needle and the thread are like my pencil and brush. Embroidery as artwork is different from craft because there is no pattern and I do not hide knots or threads or make it neat. In fact, messy threads can refer to our current era which is full of arguments,” said Narissara. At “Unnamed Tremble”, Narissara is exhibiting her embroideries which were created in 2017 and 2018 along with fabric installations because she wants visitors to see how her two-dimensional artwork in the past has developed into three-dimensional pieces. In the past, when she worked on many paintings, visitors told her that they found the eyes of her subjects in her works attractive.
“Since many people commented about the eyes in my paintings, I tried to figure out why they stood out. What I realised was that I am interested in people and when I communicate, I have to look into the other person’s eyes. Many people say eyes are like a window into the soul and this made me wonder what it would be like if eyes were not on our faces. After I worked on embroidered eyes, I was excited to see myself cross over from figurative art into abstract art,” she said.
‘‘ When visitors walk into the gallery, the cone sculptures shake just like how we tremble because we do not know when the pandemic will end
Two embroideries, A Recurring Motif and The Moon are some of her works which include English sentences along with embroidered eyes. Narissara believes that letters of the alphabet are also an abstract form.
“If we do not know the English alphabet, we are not going to understand their meanings. Typology is an abstract element and since I also work as a graphic designer, I feel abstract art is also design,” Narissara explained.
Narissara is a hard-working artist who always wants to improve herself. Before working on an exhibition, she conducts a lot of research and after the show, she analyses her work in order to develop it further. Last year, she was an artist-in-residence in Japan for 40 days and in France for one month because she wanted to gain more experience from different environments.
“In Japan, I worked in a wooden house built in the 1960s and it inspired me to create site-specific art for the first time. In France, I met a Belgian artist whose inspiration comes from plants, so I went with her and tried to produce colour from grapes. This colour will fade away in two years because it is not mixed with a chemical substance to make it permanent. I painted the colour in a notebook but have not used it in any exhibition yet,” she said.
After taking the time to develop, Narissara is delighted to exhibit three-dimensional pieces because she hopes visitors will react to her work.
“In today’s digital age, people can see art around the world on the internet. I hope visitors will come to the gallery and interact with the sculptures. Some visitors touch and play with the cones and eyeball sculptures while some put the cones on their heads. I hope people are not afraid of art and will feel close to it instead,” said Narissara.
“Unnamed Tremble” runs at The Jam Factory, Charoen Nakhon Road, until Jan 10. Admission is free. Visit facebook.com/TheJamFactoryBangkok or call 02-861-0950.