Description

‘My work has always been abstract with a personal language that I try to express. My early works are large scale, expressive with lots of vibrant colours and bold organic forms. They have less figurative elements. My work has gradually developed, with more layers and information embedded over time’.

South London based artist Ittirawee Chotirawee’s paintings are a combination of memories, imagination and intuition. Originally from Thailand he is deeply influenced by his travels in east Asia. But his paintings do not represent any specific place or event, they are informed by many different travels and experiences.  

‘When I try to recall memories, they are slightly different every time and how I feel about them depends on the environment or situation I am in at that time. Things I read, watch and listen to also feed into the work’.  

Ittirawee takes pictures to use as reference, he has taken many pictures from his travels in different parts of Japan – from very stunning seasonal landscapes to almost unnoticeable tiny alleyways in the big cities.  Japan’s very rich culture has inspired Ittirawee enormously, his wife is Japanese so he travels to Japan frequently. 

He is interested in the Japanese Zen philosophies. Particularly Wabi-sabi, the view or thought of finding beauty in every aspect of the imperfection in nature. It is about the aesthetic of things in existence that are ‘imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete’. It has caused him to see things in a different perspective. He has investigated techniques that are used in traditional Japanese art such as byobufolding screen paintings and Ukiyo-e, which are wood block prints.
The use of flat images without much sense of depth or perspective, light or shadow, the use of blank spaces, clean lines and flat areas of colour, have fed into his abstract paintings.

Ittirawee Chotirawee work on paper.

Watercolour, acrylic and ink on watercolour paper (200g/m3)

24×32cm

To find out more about Ittirawee Chotirawee