Bangkok Noir

March 12, 2007 6:37 PM

Bangkok artist Chris Coles has been called Thailand's Toulouse Lautrec. His neon colored potraits capture Bangkok's underside in a way that cuts right to the center of it's seamy heart. He even catches the city's dogs. The Bangkok Noir movement includes not only painting but literature also.
posted by Xurando (11 comments total)

Lautrec in subject matter only, it's safe to say.
posted by fire&wings at 6:48 PM on March 12, 2007

So Chris is a four-foot tall syphilitic Frenchman?
posted by R. Mutt at 7:15 PM on March 12, 2007

fire&wings writes "Lautrec in subject matter only, it's safe to say."

It's true. Those paintings were pretty damn awful.

The book list was interesting though. I've recently finished John Burdett's two Bangkok police procedurals, and I'm hungry for more.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 7:23 PM on March 12, 2007

The paintings remind me of those done by a computer, remember?
posted by signal at 7:25 PM on March 12, 2007

PUSSY SMOKE CIGARETTE! While the work lacks technical skill, it conveys a certain immediacy.
posted by longsleeves at 8:35 PM on March 12, 2007

I love it, the dog paintings and the patpong series in particular. Thanks Xurando!
posted by doctor_negative at 10:16 PM on March 12, 2007

and that would make him only about 4 generations out-of-date....
posted by wumpus at 11:03 PM on March 12, 2007

I've got to say, they lack a certain... polish.

I'm all for primitivism, but this looks like he drew the figures with his butt. I mean, if he actually DID, that would be awesome, but something tells me that's not the case. Nice, uh, use of color though. And by "nice," I mean "blinding."
posted by grapefruitmoon at 12:12 AM on March 13, 2007

It grows on you don't ya think?
posted by cmacleod at 1:11 AM on March 13, 2007

Mangy, malnourished, crazy, red-eyed, dirty-looking dogs missing teeth. Yep, that looks like most of the dogs in Bangkok.

Couldn't find any pictures of cats with mangled tails though.

Good post.
posted by kisch mokusch at 5:20 AM on March 13, 2007

I've recently finished John Burdett's two Bangkok police procedurals, and I'm hungry for more.

Apparently the third one is coming in May, Peter. I finished the second one yesterday, and loved both it and the first.

Sonchai Jitpleecheep, poised between East and West, is one of the great modern fictional detectives. His asides about reincarnation, Buddhism, and the answers that come from dreams -- well, they're not really asides, but basic to his reality -- remind me in a way of Grijpstra and de Gier, the two Amsterdam detectives created 30 years ago by Janwillem van der Wetering.
posted by LeLiLo at 3:20 PM on March 14, 2007