Sirawit Chatu

I was back at Silpakorn University, near the Grand Palace, where I worked earlier in my career. I was sipping a coffee, looking at the statue of Silpa Bhirasri. Surrounded by the comforting trees and the menacing yet friendly presence of the university’s founder, I was quietly waiting for Sirawit, known as Pun, to pick me up.

A former Silpakorn student, Pun still had access to a studio. A few days later, he was due to leave the premises, so it felt like good timing to meet. He took me upstairs, above the Faculty of Fine Arts, into a studio he shared with two other artists. It was my first time entering the studios. Most of his paintings were already stacked and packed away, but he was still working on one of his large canvases, filled with angels, one of the recurring figures in his work.

On his table, I noticed a Nang Kwak, the Thai goddess of prosperity and luck. I have many at home, and I used them in my own art too, but sadly luck is taking its time. We had to include her in the shoot. Pun went through his stack of paintings and pulled out a work built from repeated Nang Kwak talismans, part of his 2023 exhibition Endless Prayer.

Pun wants viewers “to sense that they have seen something before, but to feel that something is slightly out of place”. The exhibition looked at the uneasy relationship between spiritual belief and capitalism in Thailand, and at how prayers for money and prosperity can become a way of coping with economic insecurity. When that desire for financial security never quite ends, neither does the prayer.

He sat down with the little Nang Kwak in his hand and the repeated talismans behind him. Despite his deadpan look, Pun, like his name, actually has a good sense of humour. We kept shooting around the studio and in the corridors outside. The sun was going down, and it was time to head to FAZAL Unlimited. We jumped into a tuk-tuk and made our way to the gallery.

FAZAL was where I first came across Pun’s work. In 2025, I had photographed Shereen, one of the owners, who chose to pose in front of one of his paintings. I didn’t know Pun then. It was a day off, so we had the gallery to ourselves.

On the walls were images drawn from The King and I, part of Pun’s exhibition Gentle Ghosts With Eyes as Fair. The show questioned how Western popular culture has shaped the way Thailand and its history have been seen from outside. Pun told me he was more interested in questioning identity than defining what Thai identity is.

I was more concerned, at that moment, with figuring out where to photograph him. The gallery was dark. On one of the floors, an artwork was surrounded by red curtains that made me think of Twin Peaks. On another floor, one of his paintings had a line written like a movie subtitle: “I will be there in your dreams, as you will be in mine.” It couldn’t be more Lynchian than that, except it’s from The King and I.