Phaptawan Suwannakudt

Phaptawan Suwannakudt, born 1959 is a Thai artist based in Sydney and Bangkok. She primarily works with traditional Thai mural painting, and has been involved in numerous public projects and a series of individual artworks. She has long been interested in art as a means to connect and empathise with people through the process of storytelling. Through art, Phaptawan desires to reach beyond the limitations of language, identity, and temporality to promote intimate communication with individuals. Her works are exhibited widely in Australia, Thailand, and internationally through solo and group exhibitions. She was one of the co-founding artists of Womanifesto, an international art exchange program focusing on women artists, founded in Thailand in 1995.
==Early Life and Education==
Phaptawan was born in 1959 in Thailand. Her father, Paiboon Suwannakudt, or Tan Kudt, was also an artist working in Thai style. When she was growing up, she and her father often travelled around Thailand to visit temples. She graduated from Suksanaree High School in Bangkok in 1977, and obtained a B.A. degree majoring in English and minoring in German in Silpakorn University in 1980. In 2006, she earned a Master of Visual Arts from the Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney.
==Career==
For 12 years from 1970 to 1981, Phaptawan was a painting apprentice to her father who died in 1982 aged fifty-seven. It was her father's death that prompted Phaptawan to pursue a career as a painter. In 1981, she became an E.S.L. teacher for Indo-Chinese refugees at Pragmatics Company Ltd., a UNHCR Project. From 1984 to 1996, Phaptawan organized and led the Tan Kudt Group of painters in making temple and hotel murals. In 1996, she moved to Australia and gradually began to disconnect herself from the mural art discipline. It was also a time when she started to explore her own cultural and ethnic identity in a new environment. She was also an artist in residence in Bundanon Trust, residential Studio Grant in January in 2003, as well as in The Womanifesto International Collaborative Programme at Rai Boonbandarn, North East Thailand in 2008.
==Exhibitions and Works==
===Solo Exhibitions===
* Catching the Moment: Each Step is the Past, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asia Art, Sydney (2010) 
* Three Worlds, Arc One Gallery, Melbourne (2009)
* The Journey of an Elephant: The Ongoing Journey, Arc One Gallery, Melbourne (2007)
* The Elephant and the Bush, Arc one Gallery, Melbourne (2004)
* Recent Works, Numthong Gallery, Bangkok (2004)
* Turtles, a fish, and Ghosts..., Gallery 4A, Sydney (2002)
* Buddhist Lives, Tadu Gallery, Bangkok (2000)
* New Works, Sherman Galleries, Hargrave Street, Sydney (1999)
===Group Exhibitions===
* Women Artists Exhibition 100th year of International Women's Day, The National Gallery of Thailand (2011)
* Edge of Elsewhere, as part of Sydney Festival 2011, Campbelltown Arts Centre, NSW (2010)
* Redlands Westpac Art Prize, Mosman Gallery, Sydney (2010)
===Temple Murals and other Buddhist Works===
* A Buddhist Series of Tree and Flower Allegories (1999)
* An alter painting of the Buddha in meditation commissioned by the Zen Centre, Annandale for its Gorricks' Run meditation temple (1998/99)
* Lives of the Buddha in Sydney executed and completed in Sydney (1997/98)
Category:1959 births
Category:Thai people
Category:Thai artists