2017ASSURC.sched.com

Rattana Salee is a contemporary sculptor from Thailand who received her MFA from Silpakorn University in 2011. This paper offers a visual analysis of her series Shell (Shocked) and an interpretation of her works from a Global Contemporary Art point of view. The body of work grouped together as Shell (Shocked) is mostly abstract and uses metal rods, epoxy, and plaster to offer a juxtaposition of the communal yet private complexities of urban living. Salee’s haunting sculptures mimic the incomplete skeletal structures of urban architecture in Bangkok that were left unfinished after a financial crisis in 1997. While this series offers a commentary on the economic state of Thailand at that particular time, it also suggests a broader social commentary on how people become removed from their surroundings, others, and themselves as a direct result of the increase in urbanization. Shell (Shocked) also speaks to the author of this paper on a more personal level since they are pursuing a BFA in sculpture and their body of work offers a similar social commentary on the formation and development of human identity using mixed media. As such, the paper will provide not only a crucial contribution to the scant amount of scholarship existing on the artist, but it will also contextualize Salee’s work in the 21st century exchange of East and West. This is particularly poignant as Salee is working on a new series that continues a dialogue with and about her city, but uses a more personal and thought-provoking approach.

The Palestinian artist Taysir Sharaf was active from 1967 until his death in 2001, maintaining an active career for over 25 years. During this time, he produced over 500 original works and distinguished himself amongst artists of Palestine. Despite his prolific career and numerous successful exhibitions, limited research has been produced concerning his life and work. This paper will discuss the artist in the context of Palestinian and Global Art communities. His works Jerusalem (1979) and Only God is Victorious (1998) are particularly helpful in the examination of Sharaf’s career. They showcase how the artist’s representations of Jerusalem both documented and contributed to the culture of a nation during conflict and transition. This paper will be examining these works which he produced during the occupation of Palestine. It will elaborate on his use of painting to cope with the sadness and sense of defeat that accompanied the occupation of his hometown. Artistic reactions to conflict leave a mark on the history and culture of the region. This contribution will shed new light on the current conversation surrounding conflict in this region.

Yazan Khalili is an artist and former architect from Palestine who currently resides in the notoriously contentious West Bank. His most well-known works use the medium of photography, drawing, and digital manipulation to discuss the issue of the Palestinian-Israeli relationship through the various contexts of this region. Motivated by his own experiences as both an architect and a Palestinian, Yazan illustrates the ever changing landscape of the West Bank, especially as it is altered through militia enforced Israeli settlements and the use of checkpoints. Common themes of his work include the politics of geography, the social and political implications of borders, and challenging the perceptions of photography as a political tool. The following is a discussion of several bodies of work by Khalili that deal primarily with the artist’s personal relationship to the unstable physiography of Palestine. This paper will also discuss the evolution of his artistic practices while providing context of the political situation that influences it, thus making a crucial contribution to the dearth of scholarly publications on his oeuvre. As one of the few accessible Palestinian artists who works from the nucleus of the Israel-Palestine conflict, Khalili’s work is providing an aperture to look through that has remained, otherwise, unseen in the Western understanding of this crisis.

A leading figure in the art and Internet movement, thirty-year-old Thai artist Korakrit Arunanondchai, amalgamates pop-culture, music, and his Thai origin in his pieces. He plays with the paradoxes and oxymorons of growing up in Bangkok and identifying as a Buddhist and finding his artistic career in America and adopting a more liberal western morality. He represents the dialectic between our conscious self and perception versus our unconscious sentiments in his abstract, all encompassing horror vacui installations. Arunanondchai was born in the capital city Bangkok in 1986. He grew up with four brothers in a privileged family; his grandfather was a Thai ambassador to America, France and Vietnam. He noted in an interview with VICE Magazine that his teenage years were defined by being in a semi-famous band in which he was much more handsome and talented than his band counterparts, according to famous Thai record label GMM, so, they split up. Arunanondchai is currently a superstar in the art world. 

Thai artist Jirapat Tatsanasomboon broke political barriers with his emergence of a specialized theme within his artwork. Although contemporary art throughout Asia still lacks scholarly research and global recognition, Tatsanasomboon became a chief leader when bringing attention to the massive influences the Western world has made on the rich culture of Thailand, as well as the pressures the people of Thailand faced by the influence of Westernized consumerism. His paintings includes the recreation of some of the world's most acclaimed artworks including creations by Michelangelo Buonarroti and Frida Kahlo. This paper will outline Tatsanasomboon’s disappointment towards the Westernized world and its negative influence on Thai culture through paintings that merge Thailand's epic characters from the Hindu story the Ramakien and the recreations of famous artworks as well as the comparison of his artwork to the originals he modernized.

Through this paper I will be tracing the art and scholarship of Samia Halaby. A Palestinian artist based in America, much of her work revolves around activism and education of Palestinian art. A pioneer of abstraction in the Middle East, Halaby has brought much visibility to art of the region. On par with her paintings, the scholarship she independently produces is just as capturing. Halaby explores Middle Eastern art through her own visual works as well as exhibitions she curates in the United States.

Laila Shawa is a Palestinian artist whose work illustrates the ongoing political turmoil and struggles of her homeland. After graduating from the Leonardo da Vinci School of Art in Cairo in 1957, and from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in 1964, she returned to Gaza to work with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine. Initially, she supervised arts education in refugee camps and worked with UN war photographer Hrant Nakasian. From 1977 to 1987 Shawa oversaw the design and building of the Rashad Shawa Cultural Centre, the first center of its kind in Gaza. Shawa is credited with pioneering the method of utilizing photography to create silk screen prints. This paper will consider her 1992 Walls of Gaza II series in the context of Contemporary Global Art with the aim to contribute to the scant scholarly discourse on this artist to date. Shawa created the twelve prints in this series to draw attention to the plight of Palestinian children growing up in the violence of Gaza. Her main source materials are photographs she has taken of graffiti, which serves as a form of communication for Palestinians, due to an Israeli ban on any other type of media. The photographs of the outer walls of homes in Gaza were taken by the artist over the course of many years. The research presented in this paper focuses primarily on her use of bright and whimsical colors to chronicle the rather serious themes of injustice and persecution.