1972, Nakorn Srithommarat (Thailand)
Silawit Poolsawat finds his inspiration during his long wanderings in Bangkok . His models are mainly women and children whose expression deeply marked him and whom he asked to photograph them. The use of acrylic allows him to transcribe this sense of imminence and spontaneity, capturing the expression of the model that he engraved in his memory. Through her portraits, Silawit offers snapshots of her life and her gripping view of others.
Silawit is the author of many portraits, mainly of women. It is indeed in them that he finds the faces most apt to communicate an expression, a feeling, a real sensitivity. In order to bring a new approach to the art of portraiture, he combines his natural intuition as an artist with a style influenced by Western techniques in order to convey the emotions of his models.
Silapool was born in the province of Nakorn Srithommarat, located in the extreme south of Thailand. Admitted at the age of 20 to the very prestigious
Silpakorn University of Fine Arts, Bangkok, where he learned the science of proportions and acquired an out-of-the-ordinary graphic style - focused on emotions rather than details - in opposition to the traditional art of Thai portraiture.
Originally having a political or funerary vocation in ancient civilizations (among the Persians, Egyptians or Greco-Romans), the portrait genre has since
experienced significant diversification, in particular thanks to the changes that took place within modern Europe (from the 15th to the 18th century), with the utterance of portraits commissioned by the growing bourgeoisie. The humanist principles of the Renaissance also contributed to this development, by plagiarizing Man and his
portrait at the center of the themes addressed by painting and sculpture.
More than a simple relic of the past, or an official representation, the Renaissance portrait is a true profession of faith by the artist, who transmits part of his experience and his personality in his work, focusing in particular on the transcription of emotions on faces. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the art of portraiture emancipated itself from the rules imposed by the past, engaging in the discovery of new techniques of representation, but also in a more intimate approach to the genre, freed from its pure mimetic function. The contribution of photography is also not to be neglected, then what the appearance of daguerreotypes in the most advanced countries in Europe has completely called into question the importance of the portrait. Why do we still paint portraits today?
Like Silapool, many Thai artists have studied at the Silpakorn University of Fine Arts. This University, founded in 1943 by Corrado Feroci, an Italian sculptor commissioned by the government, provides an education in the field of the history of the arts and that of the visual arts equivalent to the most prestigious Western universities to Thai artists. The students practice the different painting techniques considered "traditional" in Europe (conventional impressionist, expressionist, abstract). Difficult for young students to express their own sensitivity, when all genres, narrative and descriptive, figurative and abstract, already seem to have been explored.
This is why artists like Silapool draw on their Asian inspiration to give a new dimension to portraiture. His avowed objective is to renew the art of the portrait, which he achieves by endeavoring to bring out the personality of the model, the absence of any superfluous detail and a particular attention paid to the transcription of emotions which are ephemeral and intense, singular and universal.
1993 : Exposition d'Art, Faculté des Arts Décoratifs, Section Arts Appliqués, Université Silpakorn, Bangkok, Thailande
2004 : “GLASS”, Exposition de Sculpture, Plankton, Jatujak, Bangkok, Thailande
2006 : “Human”, Exposition de Sculpture, Art de Queer, Jatujak, Bangkok, Thailande
2007 : “Change”, Exposition, Galerie Hof-Art , Bangkok, Thailande
2008 : “Sexy Fatty’, Exposition, Grand7, Jatujak, Bangkok, Thailande
2009 : “Aesthetics of Body’, Exposition commune, Silom Galleria, Bangkok, Thailande
2010 : ‘The Great King”, Exposition, Grand7, Jatujak, Bangkok, Thailande
2011 : Exposition privée, Private Gallery, Monaco, Monaco,
2011 : Salon Art3G, Salon d’Art (27.000 visiteurs), Palais des Expositions, Nice, France
2012 : Salon Art Madrid, Salon d'Art (38.000 visiteurs), Pabellén de Cristal of the Casa de Campo park, Madrid, Espagne
2014: Salon Eurantica, Salon d'Art (47.000 visiteurs), Palais des Expositions, Bruxelles, Belgique
2015 : “Expressions urbaines”, Exposition d’artistes du monde entier, Institut culturel Magrez, Chateau Labottiére, Bordeaux, France