BKK Unzine Issue 11

Theme: Loving Portraits

Published: 1st July 2021

My Fantasy Thai Self

I drew this during the lunch break in my office back in 2018. It was very cold in the office with the incoming exporting information blowing my brain up. My DHL notebook has a blank page like a sketchbook so I drew myself from imagination. I want to walk everywhere topless, have long hair with side-shave and wear big ass earrings.

Everyone has a split personality in some way.

Spirit of The Male Gaze

Belief and superstition have always been two of the most important tools of education throughout the ages as it is easier to carve rules and expectations onto the unconscious of people utilizing them. Teaching methods have improved and become scientific in today’s modern world, yet there are still some foundational notions that we keep failing to educate people about. So, I promote employing the educational tools of the past to eliminate some social issues, for instance, the male gaze.

The male gaze is seeing a person as a sex object or a commodity. Such a disrespectful view is against human rights, but there is a great number of people and institutions who possess and promote this view consciously and unconsciously. To educate such people, I think we can spread the superstition “Spirit of the Male Gaze.” She appears when you view somebody as a sex object or commodity and plucks your eyes out to collect them.

There Will Be Blood

The last of the 8-portrait series “The Mothers of The Universe, this portrait is inspired by Turkish culture, and Yörük elements of attire are employed. During the Independence War which resulted in the establishment of the Turkish Republic, women played a special role in defending the country against the invading countries by fighting their way towards the army to supply them with weapons and ammo. In Turkish culture, almost no woman is afraid of seeing blood as, since their childhood, they’ve acted as healers and midwives.

But in today’s Anatolia, many women are oppressed, tortured, forced into prostitution, and ruthlessly killed by men, and the only thing that makes a woman respectable is her virginity or marriage. If a woman loses her virginity before marriage, she is considered fallen and her life becomes hell. The name of the work suggests an irony between the facts that women are not afraid of blood and that they are oppressed by means of a few drops of blood that indicates their virginity. The series of eight portraits named “Mothers of the Universe” aims at representing the body of the woman in a celestial and divine manner as opposed to the way it has long been viewed: as a commodity and sex object. In today’s world, women murders are widely neglected by governments and especially in uneducated areas, the number of women threatened, tortured, and killed by their husbands, ex-husbands, lovers, ex-lovers, or other relatives, neighbors is growing each day which makes one think that more and more people are starting to see women less valuable than animals.

I think not only men but also women should be educated as they are mothers who raise the future generations. So, women are not only the builders of the next generations but the architects of a whole reality, who can deconstruct the current patriarchally constructed reality and reconstruct a new one in which people see each other as human first, man or woman later. Therefore, the series of portraits that represent women as bodiless, timeless, celestial beings, aims at raising the awareness that such a world is possible if we work together, thus is named “Mothers of the Universe.”
You can see the rest of the portraits at the link below on my Behance page.

Segata Sanshiro Never Dies

Inspired by the mascot of the 1990’s Sega Saturn adverts in Japan and the intensity and aggression found within.

Best Friend

This is a portrait of my best friend, Ava. We are both painters studying contemporary art together at the Etobicoke School of the Arts. Ava was the first person in our class to be truly vulnerable with us through her art. Because of her bravery, our class now has a family-like relationship; we love and support each other through everything, and push each other to do our best work. Her honesty and her paintings have been my biggest inspiration for my own art, and without her work my art would not be where it is today. Being with Ava and the community at our school makes me feel so safe, but now because of the school closures due to Covid-19, I had lost that feeling of safety. Now by painting Ava, art created a feeling of safety and belonging I feel at my school, but from my room, in lockdown.

Rama IV Look 2

There is not a lot to say, except . …. I guess, I just like the contrast between her calm look and all the dusty and noisy mess on the road behind her, which she seem to filter out completely. Hats off to her.

Don’t Give no Cause or Alibi

Since the outbreak of Covid-19, the mask – the emblem of the pandemic – has fed my creativity. The mask is an object of controversy: a symbol of censorship and separation, but also of care and protection.

An Expression of Power and Compassion

This is one of the digital sketches for Illustrations I worked based on from Pinterest art for a client. And of the several unique individual concepts this is the one that gave me a flow that I have not felt doing any other illustration. I could totally feel the power and kindness merging into one when I see it.

Untitled

it is a portrait of a man who didn’t care about himself and went out to help others during the pandemic. The colors I used are symbolic of the people who help the country. The yellow symbolizes the king, the orange symbolizse the minister DESUUP and the police who help the people to follow the protocol. The Saharsara shows the kindness and willingness of the people and the king to work together for the good fortune for the country.

Deep

The actual portrait itself is of no one I know. I was inspired by other artists that have done similar styles with the fishbowl effect.

Portrait

I wanted to draw models’ faces from magazines. The woman in red is popularly known as AFGHANI GIRL, she had been on the cover page of National Geographic Magazine. The candid beauty of the picture stirred me to recreate her on paper.

The other women in this collage were popular models back then in the 1990’s. Every famous magazine would feature them.

It was challenging yet fun. The result may not have been perfect, but I wanted to prove to myself that I can.

Human Diversity

This painting is called “Human diversity” and I created it as a tribute to the “All lives matter” topic. It shows women of different skin tones and from different countries which are gathering together in harmony.

Reflection

“Reflection” is a Madonna in Art piece that was first published online in 2001. This portrait of Madonna Ciccone also known as “Madonna The Queen of Pop” is inspired by the “Music” hit album. This painting was chosen to be include d in a publication by Pop Art Books London UK and it was finally released in 2003 “Madonna in Art” London UK compiled by Mem Mehmet. The style of this painting “Reflection” is Abstract Diffusion, and in its essences reflects the raw use of color and paint strokes connected by lines. This painting was the most complex painting created in the Style of Abstract Diffusion and is a re-invention of abstract art in the modern world, considered to be a masterpiece by many critics. This piece was also exhibited at the Marriott Marquis Queen’s Park Bangkok Thailand in 2018 on our solo exhibition called “Healing Art” and impressed many visitors.

Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo del Toro is the person who showed the beauty of monsters, the darkness of human minds, and childhood dreams through his cinematographic universe. With his honesty and passion, he is one of the people that no matter what he has created, I’ll always follow his work.

Painting Self-portrait at Night

I like painting at night as it is a quiet and relaxing time for me. While I was painting this at night, I could observe myself reflecting in the mirror. The person in the mirror is myself but I feel like it is another person. The person in the painting is myself but it is another myself interpreted in my own way. The process for this painting makes me focus on myself more. Once in a while, it is good to have time like this.

L0v3ly V@mp1r3

I mixed different technique for this portrait. It started by a photo I tool of my wife, then I manipulated it in Photoshop. I replaced the eyes with 3D eyes and removed the background. I applied some filters first and then repainted all of it with a Wacom tablet. The digital painting took a very long time actually. I finished by applying some actions scripts for the dispersion effect and post-production in Lightroom. I love my wife and I always found vampire women to be very sexy, so I transformed my wife into one;-)

This was a first artwork of a series I made in 2017, where I tried to digital paint some friend’s FB profile picture as a caricature.

Sunshine in a Smile

There have always been and always will be days when you feel blah for no (or for many) reason. But there was never a cloud the sun didn’t shine through remember to smile.

Patrick

Wearing my geekiness on my sleeve here, but I’d just recently finished watching Star Trek: Picard and regardless of how people regard modern Trek it just brought back memories of a childhood role model (that being Jean-Luc Picard the character and not particularly Patrick Stewart the actor {no slight against him, however] although the piece is titled “Patrick”). This was done a while ago with marker on vellum and I kind of regret not going back to that medium more often.

ONE TAKE (DJ STICKY KEYS)

This is a portrait I did of Dj Sticky Keys. He is a Malaysian/American DJ based in Bangkok. Go check out his music! It is a digital collage made in photoshop. I used a Canon 750D for the portrait shot.

Angelina Jolie

Portrait drawing is quite challenging due to its details. I always make my own frame from soft wood, stretching on it with thick white cotton cloth and use a permanent marker, EE and mechanical pencils, carbon powder and brush on.

Don Vito

Made in 2013, to express my love for Don Vito.

Sketch I

I’ve been trying to draw more with pen. Sometimes it works sometimes not, it’s kind of like an act of faith. I like how this one turned out.

Couldn’t Sleep

I had this image of a frog sitting on a tiled road, it’s difficult to describe in words and I had to draw it, but instead of drawing a random scenery, I decided to organize around the avatar I use in my comic strips. And yes I could sleep after I drew this.