ฟรรฅ

MATDOT Art Center is pleased to present the latest solo exhibition by Michael Shaowanasai, inviting audiences to encounter contradiction, dark humour, and questions about the meaning of life through a diverse range of works spanning painting, photography, performance, installation, and participatory art. Bringing together works from different periods of the artist’s life and practice, the exhibition also features a special dish prepared for guests attending the opening reception.

The works presented in the exhibition reflect Michael’s longstanding tendency to take ordinary and familiar elements—from language, photography, and food to belief and cultural symbols—and subtly displace them from their expected meanings and functions before reconstructing them within new contexts. What initially appears straightforward may become ambiguous, humorous, or even slightly uncomfortable, as distinctions between the real and the artificial, the sacred and the mundane, and sincerity and performance begin to lose their apparent certainty.

Beneath this playful and irreverent approach lies the artist’s enduring interest in life, people, and human behaviour, particularly in the ways we construct meaning and assign value to the things around us. Rather than offering definitive answers, “ฟรรฅ” creates a space in which audiences are invited to look, read, interpret, and participate through their own experiences, while reconsidering those familiar things that may have become so ordinary that we have forgotten to question them.

On view: 24 August – 30 September 2026
Opening reception: Monday 24 August, 18:00