Episode 14: Pinaree Sanpitak – The power of time
Our lives revolve around time. Collectively, time can be a set duration or norm like working 9 to 5. Time can be a form of value like the saying ‘time is money’. Time can also transcend different dimensions – the past, present, and future. Time is the one thing that we hold on to, but can’t always control. When doing creative work, I often find myself having to slow down. Thoughts, ideas, and even the act of making or producing creative work take time, patience, and the ability to let go and trust the process.
In this episode, I spoke with Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak who has been making art for over 40 years. Pinaree’s practice is centred on her fascination with the potential of the body, especially her own as a woman and a mother, and how our body teaches us about time. She shared about her early interest in art, and her decision to pursue a career in the arts despite societal expectations. We spoke about her extensive journey, embracing change, and her lifetime dedication to her practice.
About Pinaree Sanpitak
Pinaree Sanpitak is one of Asia's most important contemporary artists. In the 1990s, her ground-breaking exhibition Breast Works marked the start of the artist's reference to an emergent and defining iconography: the women's breast, which Pinaree has become renowned for. Over the last four decades, she has developed an enigmatic inventory of symbols distilling women's bodies to their most elemental parts, expressed variously through vessels, breasts, eggs, and subtly curved profiles. Conflated with imagery of the alms bowl or a Buddhist stupa (shrine), Pinaree has created a complex lexicon that weaves seamlessly between the sacred and the profane. Characterised by tenderness and ethereality, Pinaree's works are tethered to a captivation with her own body and motherhood.
Find out more at yavuzgallery.com
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.