Curator:  Peggy Sivert Zask

South Bay Contemporary

Presents:

THAILAND:  Grown Up

Sudrak Khongpuang:  Paintings from Thailand

(Main Gallery)

and

Matthew Thomas:  Lightening in the Dark

Meditation Drawings

(gallery B)

Also

Scott Trimble:  Recent Paintings

(in SBC Studio)

South Bay Contemporary is pleased to present Thai artist, Sudrak Khongpuang. 

She is showing oil paintings of her countryside as she remembers from her childhood.  Matthew Thomas, who is also showing his drawings, moved from LA to Thailand 4 years ago and made friends with Sudrak, encouraging her to make the trip to LA for this exhibition. Scott Trimble, an artist from Hermosa Beach will show a selection of his work in SBC studio as part of SBC featured artist program.  Please join us in a warm reception for these artists and especially Sudrak who has traveled far for her first show in the US.

About the Artists

Sudrak Khongpuang

Thailand

Sudrak Khongpuang started her career as a professional painter 12 years ago.  A prolific practitioner of the Naïve Surrealism movement, Sudrak is renown for the use of vibrant colors to document the Thai countryside and the old rural way of life.  Her oil colour on canvas Modern Landscape paintings, inspired by her carefree childhood years spent with her grandparents upcountry, are a clear testament of her unique style.

A self-taught painter, Sudrak spent the first half of her professional career perfecting her techniques and discovering her distinctive style.  From that moment on, her works have made their ways to public viewing – both as a part of group exhibitions and independently.  Amongst her many solo showcases, the most notable are exhibitions held at the National Gallery of Thailand, the Bangkok Art & Culture Centre, and the Jamjuree Art Gallery of the Chulalongkorn University to name just a few.  Her paintings are celebrated by both domestic and foreign art collectors.

In 2016, Sudrak will hold her solo art exhibition outside of Thailand for the very first time at South Bay Contemporary/Zask Gallery in San Pedro, California during the months of January and February.  Aptly titled “Grown-up” and inspired by her own experience – good, bad, blissful, agonizing - the exhibition will showcase both her old and new collections, enabling you to fully see her growth and journey as a professional painter through the use of more robust colors and a better balanced and well-set composition. 

Matthew Thomas

“Lightening in the Dark”

The recent drawings by Matthew Thomas are the first works to be shown since his move from San Pedro, CA to Thailand 4 years ago.  The drawings are a simple means to support his meditation practice and to teach meditation.  He hopes to build a bridge to connect people with the universal art spirit, a connection that is like lightening in the dark.

Thomas has begun teaching a course in meditation at his Buddhist Temple in Thailand using his art.  His method introduces a simple printed manual combining text and image to touch the heart and help people realize how wonderful they are - as they are.

Scott Trimble: 

Recent Paintings

Scott Trimble is a prolific and expressive painter who works in a crowded corner of his living room in Hermosa Beach surrounded by hundreds of his painted canvases that build up a story through textural layers and gestural brushstrokes.  His color varies from one painting to the next in an unplanned exploration of surface texture and emotional expression.  Trimble’s figurative oil paintings deal with relationships in some manner, either a relationship from one person to the next, between a person and their self-image, or between a person and nature. Each painting has a poetic title that leaves much to the imagination of the viewer.

The emotional free range brings to mind Jean-Michel Basquiat and the social commentary and poetic titles brings to mind the prolific San Pedro artist, Harold Plople.  Trimble refers to his work as pocket narratives, as very short stories. “What I try to accomplish with my painting is to give people a little break from whatever it is that’s going on in their lives, and hopefully they’ll feel good in the process.”