Seeing is believing
The Friday Times (Pakistan)
January 06-12, 2012 – Vol. XXIII, No. 47
Believers’ Paradise must be among
the most amazing art exhibitions presented by Karachi’s Koel Gallery. It features three
renowned artists – Panuwat Sitheechoke, Arthit Amornchorn and Kriangkrai
Kongkhanun – and is worlds apart from the usual statement-orientated work of
contemporary Pakistani artists.
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| Art Exhibition Believers' Paradise at Koel Gallery |
It was,
however, the work of Kriangkrai Konghkanun that stole this show. Like many Thai
artists he is strongly influenced by Theravada Buddhism, and particularly by
the teachings of the renowned meditation master Buddhadsa Bhikku. Here as in
other schools of Buddhism, believers try to follow the path of spiritual
practice leading out of samsara, the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth
to enlightenment.
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| Art Exhibition Believers' Paradise at Koel Gallery |
The Thraibhumikatha, or The Book
of Heaven and Hell, sets out a spiritual worldview dating from the 14th century
according to which man lives in the Realm of Sensation, and it is partly from
the vivid description of its deities, devils and hellish animals that
Kriangkrai gets his ideas of how these creatures affect and represent the world
we live in. Thus it is far from surprising that they inhabit his dreams!
Another influence on his art is
the pictorial symbolism of Buddhist mural painting, something from which many
artists traditional studying traditional Thai painting draw rich inspiration.
This artist, however, also
happened to study in Europe, where he became familiar with Christian ideas of
heaven and hell, and with the works of 16th century artists like Pieter
Brueghel the Elder and Pieter Brueghel the Younger, with their mad and depraved
scenes that show each person in the crowd doing some crazy thing. Then there is
the 19th century artist Gustave Dore’s illustration of Dante Alighieri’s Divine
Comedy. “It is important to point out that whereas in the Christian hell the
damned are subjected to eternal torment, those trapped in any of the multitude
of Buddisht hells (some number them at 136) may redeem themselves and rise to a
higher level of existence in their next rebirth.”
In a more immediate sense, the
point of departure for Kriangkrai’s work is, however, the knowledge that
negative human traits such as anger, hatred, selfishness, which figure in the
Buddhist list of ten negative emotions, are so deeply present in human
consciousness that they always re-surface. This indeed is why it requires eons
of striving to reach the state of enlightenment. And this is where Buddhism and
Christianity agree that hell is something that we create within ourselves.
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| Kriangkrai Kongkhanun, High Temper, Woodcut, 97 x 97cm, 2010 |
In Karachi Kriangkrai’s exhibits
were titled ‘High Temper’, ‘Spiritual Disease’, and ‘Touching an Ignorance’.
Ignorance is, by the way, prominent among spiritual faults in the Buddhist
view, particularly where it concerns our persistent idea of the existence of
the self. “I’ve tried to paint my nightmares, my dreams,” Kriangkrai told
viewers. “When we see a nightmare, it evokes a lot of feelings in us. You
become fearful, on other occasions angry. You don’t easily figure out your
dreams. There are lots of things in a human being that aren’t revealed. As to
my use of the colour black, well, dreams are not colourful.”
The various animals and
fantastical creatures, the weird plants and insects in this artist’s work all
have their own identities: the spider represents lust, the snake wickedness,
the naked woman sexual desire. However, in his ‘Spiritual Disease 4′, we see a
monkey carrying a one-eyed goat on his shoulders while his belly is stuffed
with human heads with wide, staring eyes. Now and then one wonders if these
eyes actually represent the seeds of wickedness. The monkey, naturally swift
and supple, dances upon the head of another one-eyed creature, its head
sprouting one-eyed flowers, while out of its snout an evil insect takes flight.
Are the cup-like appendages to these flowers collecting poison, or are they
fly-catchers, intent upon consigning escapees back to hell?
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| Kriangkrai Kongkhanun, Spiritual Disease 4, Woodcut, 200 x 100 cm, 2009 |
The goat carried on the monkey’s
shoulders embodies attachment to the psychological baggage of this life, and to
the bad karma that we have accumulated over eons and must strive to correct.
Perhaps it also shows a soul that has not yet evolved past the stage of the
monkey, since we clearly see the tail, the prehensile feet, the hair of the
monkey’s coat, together with a human face.
In light of the jaatakas – the
collection of 547 stories about the repeated births, deaths and rebirths of the
Bodhisattva (destined to become the Buddha in his final life) – the above
considerations are far from irrelevant. In each of these stories the
Bodhisattva is naturally the wisest and most highly evolved.
The spider represents lust, the
snake wickedness, the naked woman sexual desire
Interestingly, the Bodhisattva
himself is believed to have spent many thousands of years in one or another of
the Buddhist hells, though time in the spiritual world is not to be equated
with time on terra firma. Though never actually born into a hell, in Jaataka
538 he recalls time spent in the Usada Hell, one of the lowest of the Niraya
Hells which are the worst of all. In particular The story of Temiya, the Dumb
Cripple, features repeatedly in Thai temple art, appearing in Wat Yai Intharam
in Chonburi, for example, and in Bharut, as well in Myanmar and Sir Lanka, among other
places.
The eye is a tantalizingly
prominent symbol in Kriangkrai’s work. Generally the eye equals knowledge, and
perhaps in this artist’s work it carries the knowledge that these souls have
gone astray and must find the path out of their plight. The eye embodies also
the function of the jury which evaluates the individual’s life in terms of
karma: and since karma is a law of cause and effect, we are left to be our own
juries.
Some of Kriangkrai’s creatures are
one-eyed, a fact which in certain cultures marks then out to be of limited
intelligence. The four-headed goat, for instance, in ‘Spiritual Disease 1′,
possesses only a single eye in each head. In ‘Spiritual Disease 3′ the plant
exhibits one eye in the centre of its flower head, yet the myriad petals
composed of a despairing human face bring to mind the thousand-faceted eye of
the dragonfly.
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| Kriangkrai Kongkhanun,Touching of An Ignorance 4, Woodcut,100 x 200 cm, 2008 |
One of Kriangkrai’s pictures shows
an oriental dragon-like creature. This dragon is entirely different in nature
from its Western counterpart, for it is of an auspicious nature and is gifted
with wisdom. It also features in the oriental 12-year cycle, where each year is
represented by a different animal. In Kriangkrai’s picture, mind you, this
creature has wide, snapping jaws, sharp teeth, and is surrounded by the seeds
of evil, by weird, miniscule creatures, and encircled by a snake – symbol of
wickedness, remember. With one hand he grasps the snake above his head, while
with his other arm he tries to immobilize a smaller one. Actually, this
creature is part-lion, his mane being composed of closely placed circles, each
with a human head entrapped in it, while a couple of misguided soils make a
tortuous progress through his guts. What a genius Kriangkrai has for
competition, managing to put so much into each of his woodcuts without making
them seem overloaded, without letting them lose their balance or harmony.
It is finally worth mentioning
that Kriangkrai’s work is widely seen as a landmark in the history of Thai art.
A truly prolific artist, exhibiting all over the world, he is poised on the
verge of greatness, and his many admirers are waiting to see where he will go
from here.
Noor Jehan Mecklai lives in Karachi and is a
student of Tibetan Buddhism
