Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
Portrait of Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
Rasdjarmrearnsook, Araya, I Am An Artist (He Said), translated by Kong Rithdee, Singapore, National Gallery Singapore, 2022.
→Clark, John et al., Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook: Storytellers of the Town, exh. cat., 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, March – May 2014, Sydney, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, 2014.
→Daengklom, Sayan et al., The Two Planets / Village and Elsewhere, exh. cat., Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York, January – February 2012, Bangkok, ARDEL Gallery of Modern Art and Amarin Printing, 2012.
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Sculpture Center, New York City, January – March 2015
→Lament, Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm, August – October 2003
→Lustful Attachment, National Gallery, Bangkok, December 1995
Thai and Southeast Asian contemporary multidisciplinary artist (print, sculpture, installation, video, photography, performance, writing and pedagogical interventions).
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook graduated from Silpakorn University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Art in 1980 and a Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Art in 1986. In 1980, she won her first national art prize. In 1981, she had her first international exhibition. In 1990, she gained a Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Art at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig, later returning to German during the period 1993–1994 to study conceptual sculpture, which marked a decisive turn to experimenting with a multiplicity of media. A. Rasdjarmrearnsook taught at Chiang Mai University Faculty of Fine Arts from 1987 until her retirement as professor. She introduced an undergraduate degree in Multidisciplinary Art.
The longstanding themes of A. Rasdjarmrearnsook’s practice are femininity, female radical agency, death, desire, communication and relations across realms. Her artistic process entails fictionalising her memory of losing her mother and other family members early in life, and draws on her memory and daily experience of caring for others. Her works combine melancholy and contemplation with humour and irreverence. The moving image installation I’m Living (2002) shows her dressing a female corpse. Dinner with Cancer I (1993) is a sculptural installation with a bed, tubes and pools of liquid evoking the presence of a dying body. The protagonist of her novel, ผุดเกิดมาลาร่ำ [Born to Bid Farewell, 2018], recalls a life of caring for stray dogs, who in turn appear to her after their death to keep her company. The book ผมเป็นศิลปิน (2005), translated into I Am An Artist (He Said) (2022), is A. Rasdjarmrearnsook’s art criticism, memoir and parody. The installation series The Two Planets (2008) shows people commenting on framed reproductions of famous western paintings that she placed in outdoor spots in northern Thailand.
Her works have been widely shown internationally since the 1980s. These include: 14th International Biennial Exhibition of Graphic Art, Ljubjana, 1981; Traditions/Tensions, Asia Society, New York, 1996; 51st Venice Biennale, 2005; dOCUMENTA 13, 2012; Singapore Biennale, 2022. Institutions collecting her work include: M+, Hong Kong; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; Singapore Art Museum; MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai; and Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.
A biography produced as part of the programme The Flow of History. Southeast Asian Women Artists, in collaboration with Asia Art Archive
© Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions, 2024
