GALLERY SIDE 2 opened in 1997 to introduce the ideas and the works of
young contemporary artists who have never shown in Tokyo. For Asia NOW 2024, the gallery presents drawings, plant pots, stools of Thaiwijit Puengkasemsomboon.

Thaiwijit Puengkasemsomboon was born in 1959 in Patani Province. He arrived in Bangkok to attend Silpakorn University and soon after he graduated in 1984, his abstract paintings were well received earning a solo exhibition at Bangkok’s National Gallery. Puengkasemsomboon’s layers of colors, lines and forms that were inspired by Rothko, Pollock and de Kooning were freshly alive. However, he did not stop there. For Puengkasemsomboon, art was something without borders. Much closer to Tao or Zen that connects to everyday experience. Not settling into one style or medium, Puengkasemsomboon has started to integrate found objects in his works, finding beauty in everyday objects. He would talk to junk truckers to spare him some steel remains, picks up branches and driftwood, plastics and glasses. With them, he improvises. The combinations of colors, shapes, and textures of found materials initiate Thaiwijit’s art work.