Me and Them

From century-old paintings of various origins to contemporary gallery exhibitions, Tawatchai Somkong’s artistic practice has breathed new life into long-forgotten, anonymous painters—restoring their place in the modern world.

In 2014, Tawatchai conceived a new project using old paintings he had spent years collecting. Each piece had been carefully selected based on his personal artistic interests—whether due to the compelling stories they depicted, the mastery of technique, or the striking composition. Yet, beyond these individual qualities, all the paintings shared a common trait: the potential to spark new ideas that he could build upon. In Tawatchai’s view, it was as if these works were waiting for him to intervene—to do something that would bring them into a new artistic dialogue.

The diverse approaches Tawatchai employed to modify old paintings resulted in distinctly different outcomes, which can be categorised into two groups.

The first group consists of “old paintings that remain old.” Without close inspection, viewers might struggle to notice any alterations at all. A prime example is a series from his early phase, in which he seamlessly painted self-portraits into existing compositions, blending himself into the artwork so naturally that his presence appeared as if it had always been there.

Raphael
The Sistine Madonna, c.1513
Lithograph

Raphael & Tawatchai Somkong
The Curious Cupid, 2016
Lithograph

Unknown Artist
Unknown Title
Oil on canvas, 93 × 58.5 cm

Tawatchai’s creative experiment began with the direct insertion of himself into his work. The first piece in this series is a painting of the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child. Tawatchai painted over the face of the infant Jesus with his own—replacing the golden-haired Western baby with a middle-aged man, grey-haired and wearing reddish-tinted sunglasses: a portrayal of the artist himself at that time.

What Tawatchai saw was not merely a sacred narrative scene from the biblical legend, but rather the love of a mother for her child. He believes there is no mother who does not love her child; therefore, the child is always a little angel in the eyes of their mother.

Jerome Pennington DeWitt
Unknown Title
Oil on canvas, 100 × 127.5 cm

T.S. Benson
Unknown Title, 1904
Oil on canvas, 49 × 75 cm

T.S. Benson & Tawatchai Somkong
A Dog, Fisherman and Artist, 1904/2015
Oil on canvas, 49 × 75 cm

Erich Wagner
Unknown Title, 1927
Oil on canvas, 38.5 × 44.5 cm

Unknown Artist
Unknown Title
Oil on canvas, 66 × 47 cm

Symbols reflect the meaning of things that are intangible, and all of them have roots in Tawatchai’s own abstract creative works from the past.

Clouds, eyes, and dotted lines are symbols that frequently appear in this series. The “cloud” represents change and the uncertain state of all things. The “dotted line” signifies traces of something that once existed in the past, but due to the ever-moving forces of nature, it has now vanished. The “eye” denotes awakening and awareness of the phenomena that arise and cease in quiet stillness.

These symbols have been part of Tawatchai’s pictorial language since the early 1990s, during the time he studied in India. It was a period in which he began to reflect seriously on Eastern philosophy, particularly the teachings of Buddhism and Hinduism. This led to a process of conceptual distillation, resulting in a vast body of abstract artwork. Even after returning to Thailand in the 2000s, Tawatchai continued to express his ideas through these symbols consistently.

Unidentified Artist & Tawatchai Somkong
The Gleaming Breeze, 1949/2022
Oil on canvas, 55.5 × 65.5 cm

Guido Borghi & Tawatchai Somkong
Still, 1947/2020
Oil on wood, 88 × 70 cm

J Kerguen & Tawatchai Somkong
Untitled, 1947/2020
Oil on wood, 55 × 45 cm

Sigfred Neuhaus & Tawatchai Somkong
Black Star in the Field, 1912/2026
Oil on canvas

The opacity of oil paint conveys a sense of complete concealment. The act of removing figures by painting over them in red recurs in several works—sometimes a single person, sometimes two, or at times an entire group. Since this act of concealment serves to clarify the narrative, it is perhaps unsurprising that most of the altered paintings are narrative in nature. In this context, one might say that the artist is taking on the role of a theatre director: any character deemed to have a minor or non-essential role in advancing the plot is excluded from the scene.

A similar approach is applied to inanimate objects. In one work, Tawatchai chooses to paint over a single object in red—namely the cross resting on Christ’s shoulder in the painting The Red Cross (2022).

Unknown Artist & Tawatchai Somkong
One Last Touch, 2018
Oil on canvas, 95 × 79.5 cm

Unknown Artist & Tawatchai Somkong
The Absence of God, 2022
Oil on canvas, 90 × 66.5 cm

Unknown Artist & Tawatchai Somkong
Romeo & Juliet, 2022
Oil on canvas, 92.5 × 67 cm