Supicha Sutanthavibul’s paintings of stuffed toy animals hung on butcher hooks present powerful visual metaphors. Mixing adulthood and childhood, human and animal, and toy and flesh, these evocative images are reflections on power and abuse, greed, lust and wealth. They trigger our consciousness of a long forgotten innocence and the times when as children we were able to experience real empathy towards all forms of beings.

 

These haunting works force us towards instant introspection and psychoanalysis. Which are the sophisticated creatures, humans or beasts ? What is innocence, why is childhood ending, where have our toys gone, and are we still entitled to hold on to these toys as we grow up? All these questions are woven into Supicha’s pictures in a whirlwind of black and white, colour, and varnish that draws us back towards our own paradise lost. One wonders whether it is in fact the viewer who is hung on these hooks, helpless to counter his own karma.

 

Supicha studied at Silapakorn university in Bangkok. Her works have been exhibited at the China Academy of Arts in Hangzhou, and can be found in Krung Thai Bank Collection and other notable private collections.