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Teerapat Suwan

"My name is Teerapat Suwan, but you can call me Tom as well. In my family, I am the older of two siblings. We come from a gardening family, cultivating langan, onion, and also garlic. Even though we are children of gardeners, my brother and I worked hard to succeed in school. I studied at the school near my home. This is the place where I first discovered my painting ability; they taught me about the arts and painting from primary school through high school. I was always the one who could draw and paint very well. I won the third prize in the Northern Students art competition, and this gave me confidence for choosing my own path – that of the artist.

"I began to think about the future. I loved painting and wanted to find a way to adapt it to my career. I decided to study architecture at a technological college. This place provided me with many things, including what I wanted to learn. After graduating I started working for a design company in town for four years. It was good, but it wasn't exactly for me. I decided to continue my university studies in the landscape design department. Here I learned about designing gardens and about decorating.

"After two years I went to work in a casino in the Burma region, a place known as the Golden Triangle that was famous for drugs many years ago. I was the one who was in control of the exterior design. I had many gardeners under my command and assigned them tasks every day. But, as everyone in the country knows, this place still has drug problems, and it can be a risk to live there. Every day we saw dead people flowing down the Kong River. Some of them were drug traffickers and others were Thai police. I felt insecure even though I was making a lot of money.

"What finally made me leave the casino is when I had problems with some of my workers, as several of the guys were addicts and didn't show up to work. I reported it to the boss and they were punished, but they became angry with me and threatened to shoot me and throw me in the river.

"I left the casino and found a job at a sports club. After a while I began to feel very bored. I couldn't do anything; they hired me just to take care of the garden, without any design responsibilities. However, during this time I took up painting again. This was relaxing for me and allowed me to concentrate. Fortunately, my cousin, who makes batik cloths, suggested that I work with her. I delightedly agreed and started to learn the art from my cousin. This was who I was meant to be. I was able to paint and design at the same time.

"I love the local lifestyle as I have observed it since I was young. The mural paintings are wonderful and contain the lives of the people within them. I began designing new cushion covers and wall hangings that featured Lanna (northern Thai) people doing what they did 200 years ago. The movement, colors, and style are all adapted from mural paintings and influenced by own imagination."

To create his beautiful designs, Suwan stretches cotton on a frame. The design is painted with a mixture of hot wax and resin, and the piece goes into the dye pot. When the fabric is crumpled into the dying solution, the wax cracks, creating an attractive network of fine lines. The wax is removed and the process is repeated for each color utilized. Suwan uses sodium bicarbonate to achieve an antique effect.