Ponnapa Prakkamakul

Artist Statement

As a painter and a landscape architect, site investigation and immersion play an important role in my work. I explore new places using the painting process as a tool to experience, understand, and form connections with my surroundings. My mixed media painting reflects my immersive experience engaging with the landscape through the performative acts of searching, studying, and collecting natural materials to paint with, as well as sketching in situ. In the studio, the collected materials such as soil, plant, groundwater, and rust from found objects are applied on paper as the painting medium depicting the landscape scenes where they were assembled from. This painting method not only creates a connection between me and the site but also fosters a deeper connection to new places as an immigrant – through art I cultivate my sense of place in this new land.

Artist Bio

Ponnapa Prakkamakul is a Thai contemporary visual artist and a landscape architect who uses the painting process as a tool to experience, understand, and connect with her surrounding environment. Through her work, she aims to gain a better understanding of cultural displacement and isolation issues as an immigrant. Ponnapa holds a Master's degree in Landscape Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design where she received Lowthorpe Fellowship Award upon graduation. She is also a recipient of David Bethuel Jamieson Artist of Color Residency & Fellowship at C-Scape Dune Shack in Provincetown, Residence Lab's artist-in-residence program at ACDC and the Pao Arts Center in Boston, and Manoog Family Artist Residency program at the Plumbing Museum in Watertown with four paintings in the museum's permanent collection. Her work has also been exhibited, published, and collected throughout the US and in Asia. Ponnapa currently lives and works in Massachusetts.

Work available on Artsy