NSW Visual Arts Preliminary and HSC Syllabus Focus:
Artists’ Practice, Structural Frame, Conceptual Framework (Artist/Artwork/World)

Artist Information

Born in 1992 in Bangkok, Thailand, Thidarat Chantachua lives and works in Bangkok. She trained as a painter, but she now uses needle and thread rather than a paintbrush to create complex geometries of space inspired by Islamic architecture and patterning as well as by the urban spaces of Bangkok and other cities such as Fukuoka, in Japan, where she undertook a residency in 2016. Her works seem to oscillate and shimmer, creating perspectival illusions of space and depth with clever contrasts of lighter and darker web-like threads that seem to draw us into her world.

Chantachua learned to sew as a child, taught by her mother, but did not consider it a possible art medium until she encountered an artist at university who used a sewing machine to make mixed media works. From that point onwards, she began to experiment with ways of using thread and textiles together with acrylic paint, initially developing her designs using Photoshop before transferring them to fabric.

As a Muslim living in a predominantly Buddhist culture, Chantachua often felt isolated and different. In her travels outside Thailand, she wondered how people could overcome their cultural and religious differences and find connection. For the artist, her thread becomes a symbolic means of emphasising the bonds that join people and unify them. “One thread alone, is fragile”, she says, “but many threads together, are stronger”. The central focus of her work is on her Islamic faith and its traditions, but she expresses this theme in a highly contemporary way, integrating the decorative traditions of Islamic arts with an abstract language influenced by western modernism.

Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and the USA.

Useful Terminology

Islamic
Decorative
Perspectival
Illusion
Sacred geometry

For Teachers

There are many interesting ways to incorporate Thidarat Chantachua’s work into Stage 6 Case Studies. Three possibilities are suggested here:

1. A Mini-case study – “Material Girls”: stitching, embroidery and textiles in the work of TWO artists discussed in relation to the work of Thidarat Chantachua selected from: Lin Tianmiao, Gao Rong, Lin Jingjing, Sally Smart, Raquel Ormella, Lara Merrett, Faith Ringgold, Shelia Hicks

2. Include the work of Thidarat Chantachua in a Preliminary or HSC case study examining feminist art practices and the restitution of textiles into fine art practices from the 1970s to today in the work of artists such as Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, Tracy Emin and Faith Ringgold

3. Compare and contrast TWO works by Thidarat Chantachua with TWO works by Chiharu Shiota

References include:

About Thidarat Chantachua
https://www.sac.gallery/artists/thidarat-chantachua/
https://modestfashiondesigners.com/meriam-thidarat-chantachuas-surreal-cosmic-gateway-to-reality/
https://neocha.com/magazine/sacred-geometry/
https://artradarjournal.com/a-journey-among-the-stars-chinese-thai-artist-thidarat-chantachua-at-art-stage-singapore-2018/

About contemporary textile artists
https://www.frieze.com/article/artificial-divide-between-fine-art-and-textiles-gendered-issue
https://www.selvedge.org/blogs/selvedge/fabric-feminism
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-03-31/revolutionary-threads-in-feminist-art/
https://thespaces.com/12-female-fibre-artists-transforming-space-through-textiles/
https://mymodernmet.com/textile-artists-womens-history-month/
https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/chiharu-shiota-the-soul-trembles?
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/innovative-textile-art-is-smashing-its-way-into-our-art-galleries-20200619-p554an.html

For Students

These questions can be considered during or after a gallery visit, or from observing the works online.

• How has Thidarat Chantachua created an illusion of space and depth in these works?

• Are these inviting spaces? Why/why not?

• Can you identify some of the separate repeated motifs that make up the complex patterns in these works?

This information about Islamic sacred geometry and traditional patterns might be helpful: https://artofislamicpattern.com/resources/educational-posters/

• Chantachua makes reference to Islamic art and architecture in her work. Can you find examples of historical or contemporary mosque architecture or Islamic textiles, porcelain or painting that you can compare with her work?

You might find this article from the Metropolitan Museum, New York, helpful: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/orna/hd_orna.htm#:~:text=The%20term%20Islamic%20art%20not,or%20created%20by%20Muslim%20artists.

• Chantachua has titled this work “Serene”. Do you agree that she has created a space that inspires a sense of peaceful wellbeing? What aspects of the work convey this intention?

“Dimensions of Faith 2” constructs a dream-like, hallucinogenic space, paradoxically suggesting that we are simultaneously descending a staircase and also travelling back into the deeper space created by the suggestion of perspective.

The work is inspired by a real place - the walkway to the minaret (the tower with a balcony from which muezzin calls Muslims to prayer) at the 300-year-old Talo Mano Mosque in Narathiwat Province (a southernmost province in Thailand where the majority of people are Muslims). It is an old wooden mosque with Thai, Javanese and Chinese architectural styles.

• What atmosphere or mood is created by Chantachua’s use of line, pattern and colour?

• Compare “Dimensions of Faith 2” with a work by M.C. Escher. You will find examples here: https://mcescher.com/

• How has Thidarat Chantachua used visual qualities, signs and symbols to convey meaning in “Serene” and “Dimensions of Faith 2”?