12 January 2018

copied

At age 60, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook has retired from Chiang Mai University, where she was a professor of fine and applied arts, given to occasional controversy in the course of a three-decade teaching career. Her ambition lately has been to get back to writing, her other love. By Phatarawadee Phataranawik

But retirement is likely a meaningless concept to the multitalented Araya, as became clear in her just-ending exhibition at Bangkok’s 100 Tonson Gallery, where the whole story was told in “An Artist is Trying to Return to ‘Being a Writer’”.

It proved to be a perfect interweaving of her conceptual art and literature.

And, at the exhibition’s final evening on Thursday, she’ll launch her latest novel, “A Flowery Cry of Birth”, the fruit of her efforts during the show’s six-month run to achieve that “return” to writing, an endeavor the gallery commissioned.

The idea was to showcase Araya’s other talent, long overshadowed by her art. It’s been a success, so much so that Araya’s writing and art are intricately knitted together and virtually indistinguishable from one another.

Interestingly, she finds both pursuits equally therapeutic.

“I began writing when I was studying at Silpakorn University’s Faculty of Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Art,” she says. “I wrote for the university’s journal. One of my articles criticised the idea of college hazing.”

 

Read more: https://www.nationthailand.com/lifestyle/30336117

SOURCE: The Nation Thailand (Art & Culture)