Me and Them

Me and Them is an ongoing series in which Tawatchai Somkong establishes a profound dialogue across time, bridging the voices of past and present artists. The project began when he encountered forgotten paintings of exceptional quality—works once revered but now relegated to antique shops. By acquiring and reworking these pieces, Tawatchai revives their creators’ spirits, allowing them to re-emerge and engage with contemporary life. His interventions are both respectful and transformative: retaining the essence of the originals while introducing new meanings that question faith, identity, and cultural perception.

As the series evolves, Tawatchai’s approach becomes more conceptual, layering, erasing, and juxtaposing imagery that blurs the line between “me” (the contemporary self) and “them” (the historical other). The resulting works form a universal visual dialogue that transcends religion, geography, and time. Me and Them thus becomes not only a meditation on artistic authorship but also a metaphor for coexistence—of artists, cultures, and epochs—within a single frame, united by the timeless human pursuit of meaning and beauty.