Artsaveworld: Finding Colour in the City's Chaos and Joy in Everyday Thai Culture

When we pass a fruit cart, we might look to see what would be good to eat today.

For the artist behind Artsaveworld, what makes her stop also includes the things hanging around the cart, the small details squeezed into a limited space, and colours that nobody planned to match.

She recalls shopping in Sampeng and finding a cart covered in dangling objects. It was hard to look away. The longer she looked, the more there was to notice.

She feels the same curiosity about utility poles, cables and other elements of the street, right down to the roofs of houses, each painted in a colour chosen by its owner.

The city we walk through every day is a vast source of material for her: shapes, colours and the rhythms of things coming together in unexpected ways.

As these details enter her drawings, the familiar begins to change shape. Thai characters appear in contemporary settings, vivid colours sit boldly alongside one another, and little moments that make us smile turn up throughout the image.

This is the world of Artsaveworld. It begins with the pleasure of looking around, and a desire to share that feeling with others.

Art begins with tables, chairs and food

Behind the name Artsaveworld is a simple belief: there is art in the things of everyday life.

Tables, chairs, food and the objects we use have all involved thought, choices and arrangement. Seen this way, the distance between art and life begins to shrink.

In her workspace, drawings live alongside books, tools and collected objects. Different kinds of things share the shelves, while an image on a digital drawing screen is gradually being filled with colour.

The space reflects its maker's thinking. She illustrates Thai culture through the language of pop art, taking details from the world she lives in and interpreting them anew.

Sometimes a piece begins with something as close as an object on the table. Sometimes it starts on a shopping trip, or with a small image that stays in her mind after she has returned home.

Looking closely gives these ordinary things more stories to tell.

A city with something at every turn

Her interest in detail makes the bustle of the city a pleasure to look at.

A single street cart might hold goods, containers, bags and a collection of equipment. One utility pole can carry lines that form an intricate web. Buildings standing side by side do not necessarily share a colour scheme.

For her, that variety has a playfulness of its own. The parts may look very different, but together they create a lively scene.

This affection gradually enters her drawings: the density of detail, the composition, and colours that pull the eye towards different corners.

Of all the things she enjoys, colour is the one she speaks about most clearly.

Starting a piece can be stressful. She has to work out where to begin and how to arrange the composition. Once the structure settles into place, adding colour is when she can let herself go with the work.

Colour is both something she observes in the city and a way of expressing her own feelings.

The finished image holds a sense of contemporary Thailand, seen through the eyes of someone who enjoys her surroundings and wants to discover how far she can take them.

From darker work to the colours of Thai characters

Before the bright images we see today, her early work had a darker mood.

She began by drawing things she liked, including music and the styles that interested her at the time. The work carried a feeling she associates with emo and punk.

A turning point came when she began exploring characters from Thai literature.

Their world offered so much to examine: ornaments, costumes, giants, heroes and heroines. The variety of forms made her increasingly eager to experiment with colour.

One important character was Nang Sida, whom she began drawing early on.

Looking back, she sees that character as a starting point for colours and feelings that still carry through her work today. Even as she creates new characters, traces of that first experiment remain.

For her, Thai identity leaves plenty of room for interpretation. Characters can enter new situations, take on new poses, or appear alongside objects from present-day life.

In the film, we see a character in traditional Thai dress on a skateboard, as well as figures inhabiting scenes connected to contemporary life.

The pleasure comes when two familiar things meet and invite us to see both differently.

When a craving becomes Artsaveworld Kitchen

This reinterpretation of familiar things appears again in Artsaveworld Kitchen.

At the beginning, she did not have a clear concept. Thinking about what to create in relation to the Songwat neighbourhood brought many possible directions to mind.

She returned to the meaning of Artsaveworld, considering both the value of art and the fundamentals of living.

From there, food became an immediate connection. It is something everyone encounters every day.

Having a concept did not mean the imagery was already complete. She still had to work out how to express the idea of a kitchen.

Along the way, a craving for a banana split became part of the process.

She recalls wanting the ice cream but not getting to eat it, then turning that feeling into a piece of work instead. In the film, a yellow sculpture linked to the banana split sits among brightly coloured images and objects.

That small beginning says a lot about how she works. A feeling that arises on an ordinary day can continue into shapes, colours and stories.

A craving has its place in her creative process, just as music, a roadside cart and the literary characters that first caught her interest do.

The experimentation behind the fun

A playful image does not mean every stage of making it comes easily.

As she shows her pieces, she talks about the care needed when working with materials, including the effects of heat and the application of a surface coating. Work that has gone well all along can still be spoiled at the final stages.

Each step takes concentration, and learning happens through doing.

She thinks about starting in much the same way. Some things seem difficult and others easy, but she cannot know for sure until she tries.

First comes the desire to make the image. Questions about which tools to use, whether to draw in a familiar way or experiment with mixed media, follow gradually.

Home and family help her keep working. The space is somewhere to live, recharge and experiment, even if every corner is not perfect.

The dog wandering into her workspace, or the moments she spends sitting with a book, reveal another part of the life alongside those vivid images.

The work grows with its maker, in a place where she can rest and begin again.

Small pleasures to take home

Asked what she hopes people will receive from her work, her answer stays close to everyday happiness.

Art can live on clothing, magnets and the things we use or see often. Waking up to an image we like might offer a brief moment that makes us feel better.

She compares it to looking at her own gel nails: a small detail that brings its owner pleasure during the day.

The feeling she hopes to share through Artsaveworld is similar. Her version of contemporary Thai culture is approachable, humorous and gives people room to relax.

Even if someone who stops to look does not buy anything, she is happy if an image makes them smile, laugh, or turn to someone in surprise at how she came up with it.

From the cart that once made her pause in Sampeng, details of the city are brought back, thought through, experimented with and filled with colour, before going out into someone else's field of vision.

Some may recognise something familiar. Others may discover an angle they had never considered.

And some may simply smile, then walk on feeling a little better.