Tawan Wattuya

Tawan Wattuya

Money

24.06.2026 - 29.08.2026

Opening on Wednesday 24 June at 6 pm

Through watercolor and oil paint, Tawan Wattuya creates an aesthetics that arouses, excites while colliding with the senses, terrifying viewers, but also tickling them with caustic humor.

A graduate of the Faculty of Painting, Sculpture, and Graphic Arts at Silpakorn University, Wattuya has exhibited widely both in Thailand and internationally.

Wattuya's portraits and paintings are inspired by real people in the pop culture, whether it be beauty queens, stars and celebrities, politicians, or superheroes from cartoons and films, and of common people from all walks of life he met along his way, as well as records of events, both national and international alike. All these familiar social signifiers are recreated and transformed in a way that they become fluid, shredded, broken, blurred, diminished, expanded, and accentuated. The public icons with strong background stories are presented with divergent perception. Their imageries embedded deeply in popular recognition are altered, though not without familiar traces. These signifiers induce the spectators to envision some signs of truth hidden under watercolor or oil paint brush strokes in expressionist styles.

As for his Money series work, Wattuya recreates and vivifies banknotes from all over the world by painting enlarged versions of them in watercolor, preserving the characters of each currency but letting the fluid properties of the watercolor forge new images. The blurriness, ambiguity, and beauty of these metamorphosed banknotes reflect the transformation of the world that is turning these banknotes into mere paper.

Wattuya's reproductions of the banknotes also highlight the different identities of each country. What appears in front of you may make you consider what is inside your pocket. In reality, what we assume is valuable today may be worthless tomorrow.

From another perspective, the enlarged watercolor banknotes play with the conception of value.

Each and every currency which is valued differently according to today's exchange rate is suddenly worth peculiarly equally. When a small banknote in our wallet is transfigured through Wattuya's artistry onto a piece of huge painting paper, it becomes a valuable artwork. The alchemy of different paper values in the real and art world displays his sharp sense of irony, as if the seal and signature of the Treasurer of each banknote are endorsed by Wattuya himself. They are Wattuya's banknotes or, jokingly saying, he is laundering all these banknotes into his artistic treasure.

Wattuya's banknotes are issued to represent aesthetic value in the arts market.

Wutigorn Kongka
Assistant Professor at The Faculty of Architecture,
King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang /
Curator of Bangkok Art Biennale 2020
(Translated by Pakavadi Veerapasapong)