Anantachina is a Bangkok-based artist and graphic designer. His works range from architectural collages of urban landscapes to collages incorporating symbolic motifs in unknown family photos found at flea markets.
In this exhibition, the artist uses adult magazine clippings dating back several decades as the basis for his work. He cuts, rearranges and glues the materials to remove their direct sensual elements.
His collages also use clippings from the same magazines concerning furniture, audio equipment and architecture, creating a mix of different surface textures superimposed within the same image.
“The indescribable excitement, attention and concentration on the parts hidden under clothes during those teenage years seem so different to my viewpoint in middle age. Today, I see millions of times (or pixels) more beauty in the surrounding atmosphere than in those hidden parts,” he says.
While the cut-out images of faces and bodies retain provocative traces, new elements incorporated through collage and objects used as props in the original photo shoots are superimposed to give new meaning to the works.
In the “Little Sweetheart” series, there are several works that relate to the representation of men in magazines. In a collage based on a cigarette advertisement, reminiscent of Richard Prince’s “Cowboy Series”, symbolic elements such as the man’s face, tie and cigarette pack are removed from the image, reconnecting us with the female collages.
This series seems more like a projection of the artist’s personal viewpoint on the images that are continually consumed in popular culture than a questioning of representation and sexual identity in images.
Through the artist’s hands, the people in the images are reborn and manifest as chimerical existences that contain playful rhythms as well as imperfections and chaos. “Little Sweetheart” is like an alchemical transmutation that combines contextualized images and personal memories.
