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MONSOON moments
Charlie Winterman discovers what inspires artist Thép Thavonsouk
IT is mid-afternoon in the city of Bangkok. An elegant man with greying hair enters the Author’s Lounge at The Oriental Bangkok. He doesn’t seem to walk so much as float through the lounge.
His unruffled appearance and graceful demeanour suits the room’s polar-white tranquillity perfectly, even though outside, the first storm clouds of the monsoon season threaten a late afternoon downpour.
Thép Thavonsouk appears completely at home in Asia, even though he left his Laotian hometown of Vientiane in his 20s, spending more than half his life in Calgary,Canada. The 59-year-old painter looks every inch the mid-career success story – yet his clothes also give away some of his secrets.
His white linen shirt is impeccably starched but collarless, giving him a dapper, yet relaxed appearance. His grey trousers have a designer cut, but the cloth contains an unusual slub, and is not a mainstream fabric by any means.
His immaculate black lace-ups look almost definitely hand-stitched; and while his socks are a perfect tone of grey to match his trousers, they are woven with a whacky geometric pattern.
CLASS OF HIS OWN
This is the trademark twist in the tale of Thép Thavonsouk. Never one to follow fashion, he prefers to lead, creating his own style by blending a fluid, Oriental easiness with sharp Western flair. This is a trait that has flowed into his paintings which, at times take on a mystical charcoal moodiness or can be a symphony of vibrant tangerine and violet, or turquoise and green.
He paints mostly semi-abstract scenes of swirling hues which depict skies or watery pools; they often incorporate minute figures of saffron-robed monks toting umbrellas, purposely dwarfed against the magnitude of nature.
He works in oils and inks, on canvas and richly absorbent rice paper, and talks of influences by masters such as James McNeill Whistler and JMW Turner. Yet, at times, the impressionistic strokes and chromatic clashes of colour also reflect another influence, the acclaimed abstract artist, Mark Rothko.
Unusually, his artistic training incorporates the rigours of Chinese painting, which he learnt in Taiwan (he cites the unparallelled Chinese painter Zhang Da Qian as a major influence).
He also spent a period working laboriously in Japan, studying the art of woodcuts, and learning Japanese.
One gets the impression that whatever Thép Thavonsouk sets his mind to do, he does to the end. After following in the strict, disciplinarian footsteps of his Oriental masters, he found an artistic liberation of sorts – what he terms his “own way” – in Canada, albeit feeding off the colours and emotions of his Laotian past.
When asked to describe his work, he responds instantly, “Contemporary – absolutely!”
AMALGATION OF CULTURES
This is a man who has taken his early Laotian heritage, his mid-life Canadian experiences and his proudly global soul, and amalgamated them into a unique artistic recipe that can be repeated again and again.
Borrowing from his hybrid background, his work is quiet, pondering, yet hardly contentious. “I was never a rebel,” says Thép. His work can be seen in one way as strictly traditional, and in another way – like his socks – unashamedly singular and contemporary.
Over the last 30 years, this former diplomatic wannabe, accomplished linguist, ex-language teacher and one-time Canadian Federal Government employee has unashamedly climbed the road towards commercial success.
Since 1978, his work has been shown from Tokyo to California to his original hometown of Vientiane. His works now command up to US$72,000, with wealthy collectors in his adopted home city of Calgary happy to drop US$50,000 a painting.
Some have even assembled collections of his works in parts of their homes which, he proudly adds, are referred to as “Thép’s Room”. The rest of the town’s general public have to satisfy themselves with viewing his Saffron Robes painting that recently joined the Glenbow Museum’s outstanding collection of artwork.
LAOTIAN HERITAGE
Born to a well-off, French-educated father and a steely mother, whose religious piety he seems to have (he claims unwittingly) absorbed, Thép Thavonsouk is typically proud to be Laotian.
Like many of his fellow citizens, he left the former French colony during the 1970s when Laos became embroiled in what was later called The Secret War, because so few knew about it. It was during this time that the country was subjected to years of relentless carpet bombing by the United States, a precursor to the Pathet Lao (Communist) takeover.
But unlike the rest of his classmates, he eschewed a scholarship to France and insisted on going to an Anglophone country. It was to be a stint in America, then ultimately, Canada.
Thép returned to Laos in the 1990s and reconnected, not just with the family he had left behind, but with his spiritual roots in this devoutly Buddhist nation. The artist rediscovered Laos’ unspoilt pastoral beauty and also a climatic phenomenon he had all but forgotten – the monsoon, a subject that prompted an important series of paintings entitled “June Rain”.
Far from encapsulating the dark, looming clouds of impending storms, these passionate and lively images are – according to the artist – supposed to be seen as optimistic visions of life and nature.
“In all these paintings you will see a line, a shaft of light,” he explains. “I am an optimist, I have to be!”
SPACE FOR “RAIN”
In the last decade, hundreds, perhaps thousands of displaced Laotians have returned from new lives in France, the United States, Australia or Canada to give something back, or in Buddhist terms, “buy merit”, by helping rebuild the country.
Thanks to the efforts of these returnees and the Laotian government’s increasingly open policy towards enterprise and tourism, Laos today, is a country that is fast gearing up for those changes.
Thép is now working on a new gallery, which will hold its grand opening in Luang Prabang this December. The space is to be aptly christened “Saaifone”, a combination of the Lao words saai (thread) and fone (rain), his popular artistic theme.
The gallery will be downstairs in a traditional Lao-style home but – as one might expect – it will have a wholly modern interior. He hopes it will also serve as an arts centre for friends and colleagues intent on rekindling Laotian arts as well as serving as an escape from the harsh Canadian winters for a few months each year.
Indeed, the small town is now taking on larger, more global roles, having hosted a conference of international museum curators this October, headed by France Morin from New York.
Thép sees this change as part of the evolution of life; something that his Buddhist heritage emphasises as an inevitability, not just a mere possibility.
BREAK IN THE CLOUD
Suddenly, Thép jumps up mid-sentence and halts the interview. Something outside has caught his eye. The sun is setting over the Chao Phraya river and, through the long, lounge windows, he has seen something that excites him.
“Sit here!” he commands, patting the cushion beside him with some urgency.
“Look!” There seems to be nothing extraordinary in view… Outside, high over the west, there are two strips of white clouds heralding the end of the day.
“You see that light?” he asks. “That light in between the two sets of clouds?”
He points to a bright luminous patch of sky shining mercurially. “That’s what June Rain is about!”
Even over high tea at The Oriental Hotel, Thép Thavonsouk’s eyes are feasting on the light outside; the changing sky; the world around him. Not long after, he finishes his tea and leaves by the main entrance. Stepping out of the air-conditioning into the damp evening, he inhales the steamy Bangkok air and exclaims, “I’ve come home!”
In spite of all this, one gets the feeling that Thép Thavonsouk could, in fact, be at home anywhere; he seems to have cut his earthly moorings to drift to another level – a floating spirit who inhabits a shaft of illuminated light caught between two layers of silvery, monsoon cloud.
Thép Thavonsouk was interviewed at the Author’s Lounge, as guest of The Oriental Bangkok, Soi Oriental, tel +66 (0)2 569-9000, www.mandarinoriental.com/bangkok
Saaifone Contemporary Gallery had a soft opening in early October, with the grand opening due to take place on 13 December.
Look out for the sign at the entrance to the alley off the main road of Maison de la Patrimoine in Luang Prabang’s Vat Xieng Mouane district.
For more information on Thép Thavansouk, his exhibitions and the new gallery, visit www.junerain.com or email thep@junerain.com
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