4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Bangkok Post
Thai-British artist centres women in exploration of myth
The histories and relationships between women and trees are portrayed through art during "Epiphytes", which is running at Supples Gallery, until Sept 7.
This is a solo exhibition by Thai-British artist Julia Phetra Oborne, who brings a series of new oil paintings that reflect her ongoing exploration of the relationships between women and trees, memory and myth and landscape and identity.
Rooted in stories, memories and personal observations of woodlands and forests, the exhibition reflects the woodland as a universal and symbolic environment, familiar yet ambiguous, where the presence of the female form threads through the landscape. Both personal and symbolic, the paintings are shaped by the artist's dual Thai and British heritage.
The title "Epiphytes" -- meaning plants that grow upon other plants -- considers the canvas as a site of accumulation. She builds surfaces that play host, revealing and veiling forms, through the process of mark-making and layering.
The imagery is inspired by ritual, literature and myth, including the Buddhist tale of Nariphon, a tree bearing fruit in the shape of women. Like epiphytes themselves, these symbols are tethered to the surface, which becomes a space where the past and present meet and are re-examined.
Oborne holds a BA in Painting from Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh. She blends myths, folklore, and autobiography in paintings that explore memory, identity and reimagined visual languages.
Influenced by abstract expressionism and Southeast and East Asian imagery, her work shifts between abstraction and figuration. She has lived and worked between Bangkok and London.
