Let's get this on tape

IT’S NOT easy catching people’s attention in the hustle and bustle outside Platinum Fashion at Bangkok’s Pratunam intersection, but Australian artist Daniel Connell has managed. He’s created four portraits on the mall’s marble exterior – using only adhesive tape – that stop passers-by in their tracks.

The portraits, formed with coloured tape so thickly layered it looks like the heavy brushstrokes of an Impressionist painting, seize the attention with their direct gazes. And the faces in the portraits might even look familiar. Recognise the names attached to them? They’re Top, Nual, Rung and Tik, a taxi-motorcyclist, a chef and two housekeepers who all work in the area.

“This is a space people normally just walk through – nobody stops – but with the art here, people can stop, gather, talk, interact, have their photos taken and consider the other people who are working and living in this space,” says Connell. He’s participating in the annual Living Arts Festival that’s livening up public areas around Ratchaprasong. 

“Tape art” has evolved from street art like graffiti. It might appear on road surfaces as well as walls. Sticky tape, Connell says, is “a commercial and everyday material and people can relate to it easily, but I subvert it into something human”.

The Platinum project began with snapshots of the four subjects, chosen because they’re ordinary folks who know the place well. The photos were arranged on paper marked up in a grid to match the dimensions of the marble tiles on the mall wall. Connell, a PhD candidate at the University of South Australia, sliced and spliced tape of various hues to complete the portraits in about two days. They’ll stay on the wall until June 8.

“Bangkok is a multicultural society,” he says. “People from all walks of life and from all over the world come to the Platinum to buy clothes and take them back – to Sri Lanka, India, Turkey, Dubai or Nigeria. 

“The portraits, looking directly at you, create a conversation with the viewer. The viewer isn’t looking at someone, they’re looking with someone, and that someone is looking back at them. It creates a three-way interaction between me, the portraits and the audience.”

Connell, who lived in India for two years and studied Hinduism, admits the labour is not just time-consuming – it also demands “contemplation”. “When doing a portrait, we have to create a relationship with the subject and break down our own ego. It’s an opening-up of ourselves.”

His aim, he says, goes beyond bridging cultural differences to creating a human connection within the community itself. “I choose somebody whose community is here. His or her community can watch the work evolve, think about it and spread the word about it, like, ‘This is my friend.’ 

“I’m always happy to see the people I portray feel good about the results. They take a risk with me and have to trust me, that I won’t make fun of them. I hold that trust carefully and honour them. It’s a good metaphor for the relationship between strangers.”

CentralWorld nearby has had Erica Duthie and her husband Struan Ashby from New Zealand decorating the 17-metre glass corridor linking Zen to the Skytrain station with whimsical and calligraphic pictures in blue tape. They began the creative process last Thursday and will finish today – only to see all the tape torn down again after just 24 hours. 

That’s their choice. They regard impermanence as an integral part of their art.

“We focus on the here and now, not the next 20 years,” says Duthie, who has created more than 300 “murals” of this kind around the world in the past two decades. “The work responds to a particular time and resides more in your memory than in its physical form. It’s living in the moment. Its life span is only 24 hours, like a life cycle of a butterfly.”

The “artist tape” they use is pliable, easy to sculpt with and easy to shred for the fine details. Passers-by are invited to pause and pose as models. It doesn’t take long for their silhouettes to appear. 

“We might do a few quick sketches for basic ideas and composition, but mostly it’s spontaneous creation at the site, responding to the moment with the passers-by,” says Ashby. “Working with tape is a quick process – we want art to connect with people and bring something fresh.”

The festival’s theme is “Treasure Hunt”, so one of the couple’s creations is a fantastical, stained-glass-like image of a diva. Next to her are butterflies made from multihued cellophane-laminated sheets. “The butterfly is a metaphor for sacrifice in exchange for adventure and discovery,” says Duthie. 

At Gaysorn, Dutch artist Max Zorn has formed cinematic portraits from common packing tape that, thanks to the dun colour, recall film noir. The effect is heightened because the tape is stuck to thin layers of acrylic sheets that are then set on a light box to illuminate the images.

“Light is what brings my tape art to life,” Zorn says on his website. “Like the effect of stained-glass windows, light filters through the many layers of tape. Any kind of lighting can work: sunlight, candles, light bulbs, LED lighting and light boxes.”

Several of his latest works and four pieces newly created for the festival have joined Gaysorn permanent illuminated promotional structures on the ground floor. Taken his cues from Thai scenes both rural and urban, Zorn spent five days depicting a beautiful beach, a long-tail boat and a woman standing amid high-rises. They’ll remain in place until May 28.

Three years ago Zorn lit up an Amsterdam street with a glowing gallery of packing tape. “There’s a lot of great street art by day, but it disappears after dark,” he says. “I wanted to come up with urban art for the nighttime.”

 

HOLDING TOGETHER

>>See Daniel Connell’s tape art on the Platinum Fashion Mall on Phetchaburi Road until June 8 and more at www.DanielConnell.net.

>>Struan Ashby and Erica Duthie’s tape art comes down today at CentralWorld, but they’re online at www.TapeArt-nz.com.

>>Max Zorn’s illuminated tape art is on view at Gaysorn until May 28 and more permanently at www.MaxZorn.com.

>>Find out more about the festival at www.TheLivingArtsFest.com or www.Facebook.com/HeartOfBangkok.