Peng Janthasorn

A decade ago, during one of those packed nights at Jam, I first met Peng, who occasionally worked behind the bar. Back then, she was doing product photography for e-commerce to pay the bills, while exploring her own art through exhibitions. I invited her a few times to run workshops at my university, but we eventually lost touch after she moved to Vietnam. When I reached out for my project, I was shocked to learn she lived just one block away from me.

I grabbed my bike and gear and was at her place in two minutes. Peng welcomed me with her partner Mo and their cat, Orpheus. Born in Thailand, Peng moved to the UK when she was eight. Not speaking a word of English, art became her language. She went on to study photography at university, which eventually brought her back to Thailand, where she found work as a photographer.

Returning felt strange; she now had a British accent but wasn’t fluent in Thai, a duality she has learned to embrace. When we last talked, she had become fascinated by illustration and motion graphics, which led to her character Skylar, a flower-covered, baby-humanoid creature that reflects her search for balance between nature and technology, structure and freedom, softness and strength. Her growing obsession with the colour red now spills into her art, wardrobe, and even her cooking.

In recent years, Peng has been drawn to a slower rhythm of life and has decided to move down and start a new adventure, opening a creative hub in Krabi with her partner, a place where they feel a strong sense of community. Inspired by her late grandmother, who gathered the family around a long wooden table to make art while she prepared snacks, Peng hopes to recreate that same warmth in this new chapter. We wrapped up the shoot in the bathtub; Peng stood under the shower fully dressed, laughing as the water drenched her, like a quiet baptism before her new beginning in Krabi.