Lolay, Pare, Roman & Ninja
Visual Art · Music & Sound · Food & Hospitality
Hua Hin · December 2025
The Ronin Family—Lolay, Pare, Roman and Ninja—run Ronin Capsule, a Hua Hin café-gallery where painting, sculpture, music and family life merge into a shared creative practice. Lolay (Thaweesak Srithongdee) is a Thai artist, designer and musician known for surreal figurative paintings, fiberglass sculptures, and exhibitions in Thailand and abroad, including the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. Recent coverage of Self-Portraits at La Lanta notes that each family member has a distinct visual language, making their home and café a rare intergenerational art space shaped by collaboration and everyday creativity.
Instagram ↗Photographs and story, step by step
Just before New Year, I caught a busy train to Hua Hin to continue something I had started back in October. After leaving the station and a short bike ride, I arrived at Ronin Capsule on the outskirts of town, a coffee shop, gallery, and creative space run by Pare and Lolay, who welcomed me with their two children, Roman and Ninja. I first encountered Pare and Lolay years ago through their music, when they were performing together in Happyband in 2010. After sipping a coffee Pare had prepared, I toured the house behind the café.
In the courtyard, one of Lolay’s giant sculptures lay hidden beneath ivy and leaves, echoing the robot from Castle in the Sky. Another giant sculpture rested at the back of the property, later becoming part of our shoot. Lolay showed me his studio, where he paints most of his canvases, paint splashes on the floor included. “That’s Roman and Ninja,” he laughed. Pare also has her own painting space, though both of them work wherever they feel inspired, sometimes even in the café. One reason they moved to Hua Hin was to seek a better quality of life.
Pare initially worried about losing touch with friends in Bangkok, but the opposite happened. Friends began visiting, and she opened Ronin Capture in 2018 as both a specialty coffee shop and a public space to reconnect with people. Pare is a multidisciplinary artist, and she showed me some of her hand-printed photographs, a practice she has since reduced to avoid using chemicals. Art is everywhere in the house, works by every family member surrounded by guitars and instruments. Everyone plays music and makes art, sometimes together, sometimes alone.
Between bike rides and chess games, Roman and Ninja often draw in the café or play guitar. Their closeness to their parents is evident, in the colours they use, the clothes they wear, almost functioning like a band. Yet they remain independent, choosing for themselves what to wear and what to create. I hadn’t expected all this when I photographed them at their Bangkok exhibition last October at Labyrinth Café. That brief encounter sparked my curiosity, and eventually led me to that train bound for Hua Hin.