Time Reversal: When Artist Draws with Camera
Vipash Purichanont
“I revolve around myself, walk up and down, and circle the same place over and over in search for the space in-between.” Prateep Suthathongthai referred to his work process while photographing the interior of an abandoned theater in Mahasarakham for this solo exhibition. He looked up to the sky, pondered a bit, glanced at a sketch in his hands, checked the light meter, adjusted the tripod, waited a while and finally pressed the shutter. He then moved his favorite gigantic medium format camera up a stair step and began the whole series of action again. This repetitive process lasted until the sun left the horizon, in a manner so gradual that observers would doubt whether this was indeed a photographic process or they would find the repeating acts incomprehensible. However, the answer emerged when the slides were finally put together and created a fresh composite of an old theater that radically differed from the actual space except upon closer inspection of individual slide. For Prateep, this photographic collage portrays “simultaneous truth.”
Nevertheless, this is not the first time Prateep has introduced the process into his work and he certainly is not the first artist to employ such technique. Preteep began experimenting with this photographic process since undertaking a Masters degree at Silpakorn University. He initially recomposed various portraitures into surrealistic images of oriental religious figures before turning his attention to architecture and public space. The technique of photographic collage has long been experimented with in the history of modern art in the West – a famous example is the well-known swimming pool and boyfriend’s portrait series by David Hockney. Preteep’s work process, however, has continuously evolved and freed itself from this collage technique.
An essential aspect of Prateep’s practice that has developed beyond that of Hockney’s is his precise procedure apparent in the sequential arrangement of numbered films in each of his work which is progressively different from Hockney’s photographic collage and composite Polaroid. Preteep’s work therefore contains the “remains of time,” or, as Thanavi Chotiprasert suggested in the article of the artist’s previous show, the “manifestation of time past” in photography, which is perceived simultaneously, and not chronologically as in moving images.
Remains of time in Prateep’s work are also a reminiscence of paintings from the past, which found inspiration from the need to record a single moment in time yet took lengthy amount of time to complete. Quite contrary to a much faster method of taking photographs, Preteep’s work seems to overlap these two distinct methods of producing works of art. When taking into account all his photographic procedure, from sketching, to shooting, to processing, Prateep ends up exhausting as much time as a painter does. Therefore, Prateep appears to create similar relationship with his work as the one Romantic painters embraced with their canvas.
Another interesting dimension in Prateep’s work in relation to artist and work process is his background in painting from Poh Chang College, resulting in the particular way he looks at overall pictures through a painter’s eyes which differs from most photographers whose visuals are limited by viewfinder and lens capacity. Preteep’s work consequently breaks away from photographic conventions and limitations and allows him to explore new territory, one eye looking through a viewfinder while the other sweeping through the entire scenery. The harmonization between two distinct ways of visual perception in Preteep’s work brings about remarkable originality and ingenuity.
Moreover, “time reversal” not only implies at twist perception, but also at the transformation of fundamental discourse that creates our view. From the reversal of time, different angle of perspective, and totality in visualization, to the return to painter’s perception and alteration of photographic reality to complete surrealism; Preteep’s photographic work takes a stance between painter’s photography and painterly photography – non-existent time corresponds perfectly to abstraction of space.
Nonetheless, if one considers “time” in its “present” form, “time reversal” might signify the opportunity for the audiences to adopt Preteep’s work method and circle the exhibition space in search for unknown place themselves.
It is as if we all walk up and down, and revolve around ourselves in order to discover untrodden space everlastingly.
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