Chatmongkol Insawang – Mountains of Awareness

Richard Koh Fine Art (RKFA) is pleased to present Mountains of Awareness, a solo exhibition by Thai artist Chatmongkol Insawang, on view from 10 to 31 May 2025 at RKFA Bangkok. The exhibition features a new body of work that reflects the artist’s introspective engagement with memory, the human body, and the transience of life.

In this series, Insawang draws on vivid recollections of landscapes from his childhood, using imagery of mountains as a symbolic and emotional anchor. These places, etched into memory, become entry points for meditative explorations of perception and existence. The mountain is reimagined as a mutable form — shifting in appearance yet constant in presence — echoing the artist’s view of the body as a landscape that unfolds over time and space.

Charcoal powder, the primary medium in this series, underscores the themes of impermanence and transformation. Its fragile, elemental quality serves as a metaphor for the human condition, emphasizing the body’s inextricable link to nature and time. Insawang’s method involves spontaneous mark-making that emerges from a state of focused contemplation, allowing instinct and emotion to guide the creative process.

Through these works, the artist offers a deeply personal visual language that transcends literal representation. His paintings invite viewers into a quiet space of reflection — one that resonates with uncertainty, yet holds space for presence and awareness amid the flux of contemporary life.

Mountains of Awareness reflects Insawang’s continued interest in dissolving the boundaries between body, memory, and landscape, revealing inner truths through a process of observation, release, and transformation.

Chatmongkol Insawang (b.1980, Suphanburi, Thailand) graduated from the Faculty of Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Arts, Silpakorn University, with a Bachelor’s degree with 2^nd Class Honors (2003), a Master’s Degree (2009), and a Doctor of Philosophy (Visual Art) (2019). He received an Italian government scholarship to study in Italy and received a Diploma in Sculpture (Hons) from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze in 2008. While working and exhibiting his work, he teaches at the Department of Fine Art, Poh-Chang Academy of Arts, and was Head of the sculpture program from 2014-2017.

Insawang started his higher education in sculpture with a Bachelor’s and then a Master’s degree. He has always been interested in human nature. His works during this period revealed the darker side of humans, from desire to greed, hatred, and envy, through works of art. Nonetheless, toward the end of his Master’s, the illnesses of his mother and later himself changed his focus to other human aspects.

He started to search for the meaning of our existence and to observe our body and its connection and place in the natural world. His works began focusing on the body as a source of suffering, an organic shell covering the self. The act of breathing and the air flowing through this shell connects the body to its environment and helps prolong the decay. This development became clear during his Doctoral study from the subject matters, visuals, forms, and technique. As a result, his sculptures show fewer characteristics and individuality. He has also started working more on 2D surfaces. He is now known as a sculptor who creates sculptures and line drawings that seek the meaning of life, the inner and outer space, and the transformations of the body.

Insawang has won numerous awards, including the Bronze Medal (sculpture), the 64^th National Exhibition of Art (2019), and the Silver Medal (sculpture), the 49^th National Exhibition of Art (2003). His exhibitions include Time-Lapse: Reflecting on Thai Art, 333 Gallery in collaboration with Thai Art Collector Association, Bangkok (2021), Area 5+1 : PRECIOUS SPACE, the National Gallery, Bangkok (2020), Art Relation, Andaman Art Museum, Krabi (2015), Young Blood Sculpture, PSG Gallery, Bangkok (2011) and Opera Muta, DEA Gallery, Florence, Italy (2008). His works are also part of public and private collections, including the Bangkok Sculpture Center, Krung Thai Bank, Sermkhun Kunawong Museum House, Bangkok, Silpakorn University, and Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology: VISTEC, Rayong.

He currently lives and works in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand.