While the Light Eats Away at the Colours is a painterly installation by Apichaya Wanthiang. The exhibition is extended in time as well as space, and offers a slow spatial narrative that invites the audience to engage with the works for prolonged periods of time.

 

The nearly imperceptibly taste of sea salt lingers on my tongue. Memories flash in front of my mind’s eye. A broad boulevard follows the coast, lined with singular palm trees. The weather is sweater-breezy and the light eats away at the colours. Shades of greens and blues that make up the sea seem to be floating, as if the colours carry no weight.

 

In the distance, I see the white chapel’s silhouette popping up. The blue stained glass shimmers like a wavy walk. I stretch my arm and point at it. Lifted from the surrounding landscape, the chapel lands on the top of my index finger. I squint a little, and try to block out the flood of light. I close my left eye and then both. The chapel dances to and fro. Distracted in play, I am a place without body.

 

The following day, on the drive through the meandering hill sides, clusters of houses recede in the far distance. Inside the red house I find a small painting of the boulevard with the palm trees. The storm in the painting nearly sucks the palms into the twirling grey sky. All of a sudden I realise that only a few decades ago he was looking at and painting the same– a corresponding timescape?

Apichaya Wanthiang graduated in 2009 with a BA from Sint-Lukas Brussel and 2012 with an MA in Fine Arts from Bergen Academy of Art and Design. She works with painting, video, installations and texts dealing with slow time and the construction of (fictionalized) places. Her interest lies in the small and the anecdotal, with the aim of constructing a shared space. She has exhibited at Martin Van Blerk Galery in Antwerp, Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen Kunsthall, USF Visningrommet, Barents Spektakel, and UKS. She has worked at BEK, Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts and as a guest teacher at the Bergen Academy of Art and Design and Trondheim Academy of Fine Art.

The exhibition received funds from Norske Billedkunstnere (NBK).

[apichayawanthiang.com]

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Interview:

Johnny Herbert in conversation with Apichaya Wathiang >>>

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SEMINAR

January 16th at Stiftelsen 3,14

Lifted from the surrounding landscape
One-day open seminar reflecting on the exhibition by Apichaya Wanthiang

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