Alter Ego La Lanta @ River City Bangkok
Alter Ego
BannanaManz, BUTTERRABBITZ & SURREALRABBITZ, Ekarat Aroonrat, Pete Tangpun
La Lanta @ River City Bangkok
January 2 – February 16 2025
La Lanta Fine Art is delighted to present “Alter Ego”, a vibrant group exhibition that marks the beginning of a new chapter for La Lanta @ River City Bangkok, our gallery located in Bangkok’s premier hub of art and culture. Discover artworks by BannanaManz, BUTTERRABBITZ & SURREALRABBITZ, Ekarat Aroonrat and Pete Tangpun, talented Thai contemporary artists who synthesise their creativity, inner worlds, memories and formative cultural experiences into their creative practices: designing characters, creating powerful compositions made from simple techniques, time-travelling to bygone worlds that limn the present, referencing meaningful songs, films and popular icons in playful sculptures or venturing into the imagination of a fictional young girl.
Natchanon Poonchai creates under the pseudonym BannanaManz. He is fascinated by pop culture, and features the stylistic trademarks of famous contemporary artists, his favorite songs and rock bands, and even film fashion, in his artworks. A cross between sculpture and art toy, Bunny Hop: Gun and Rose is a gangster character dressed as such, and is available in three colorways, each in only five editions. Suspended between the past and the present, BannanaManz’s works reflect the ups and downs, the good and the bad, of life.
Sai Chanyatida possesses two creative alter-egos, BUTTERRABBITZ & SURREALRABBITZ. BUTTERRABBITZ manifests Sai’s passion for wandering the world of character design. She has honed to near virtuosity a skill with color pencils, a drawing implement familiar to most, rendering 99 unique characters + 1 sculpture that challenge each viewer’s ability to discern between media rendered by machine or human technique. On the other hand, SURREALRABBITZ is the personification of Sai’s interest in formal experimentation and personal expression. Continuously pivoting from one aesthetic context to the next, she searches for new ways to fulfil the role of conduit between artwork and viewer, creating channels for the transit of feelings and ideas that freely take on a life of their own in the boundless expanse of the imagination.
Ekarat Aroonrat is both wonderer and wanderer in the interiority of a fictional young girl on the cusp of womanhood. In his paintings, Ekarat mixes symbols of childhood and teenage rebellion, such as a pink Hello Kitty swimsuit and tattoos, to depict the flickering brightness of youth, giving way to a renewed search for identity. Viewers of his works join him in peering into the cocoon at the changing caterpillar before she emerges as a butterfly and spreads her wings.
For Pete Tangpun, art is a way of contemplating and contextualizing the transitional years between childhood and adulthood alongside broader cultural and technological shifts. Painter of retro paraphernalia on brass plates, he has developed a technique for corroding color onto his unique canvas. The buoyant sense of possibility of youth, recalled in inspirational quotes in the background of his paintings, is carved up into little details that are layered and composed, like millions of pixels, into images of youth, brimming with vitality and joy, that emit a warm, comforting glow into the present.
The act of inventing new worlds draws this formidable quartet of artists closest to who they are. Within differing practices and preoccupations, they express themselves in artworks that radiate a constellation of connections to world events, cultural shifts and shared experiences. “Alter Ego” is an invitation to fully embrace this creativity to discover who we are and roam the many expanses within ourselves.
“Alter Ego” will be on display until February 16, 2025 at La Lanta @ River City Bangkok.
Opening hours: Tuesday – Sunday, 10 am – 7 pm.
Address: Room 252-253, 2nd floor, 23, River City Bangkok, Charoen Krung rd.,
Taladnoi, Samphanthawong, Bangkok