James Prapaithong explores memory, isolation and longing through his filmic paintings which deliberately use the aspect ratio of the screen and are devoid of people. Resembling enlarged photographs of familiar yet distant places and using high colour saturation with a particular attention to light, Prapaithong’s hazy, dream-like landscapes become vehicles to communicate the uncertainty of recall, the construction of memory and the space between connection and estrangement. Prapaithong states : “My paintings are reminiscent of places that exist in each and every one of our memories and the lingering sentiment that lies within. They are intended to create flashbacks and remind us of precious moments in our lives that we may have forgotten once we have moved on.”

Commonly romanticised elements of the natural world such as water, the moon and the stars, become an essential part of Prapaithong’s oeuvre, used as both aesthetic devices to explore light within the picture, and as visual metaphors for nostalgia, yearning and a need for shared experience.

James Prapaithong (b.1996, Bangkok, Thailand) lives and works between London and Bangkok. He received his BA in painting from Wimbledon College of Arts in 2019 and his MA in painting at the Royal College of Art in 2022. Recent exhibitions include A Year Ago Today, Workplace, Still @live, MAPA Fine Art London; To My Twenties, Old Central St. Martins Building, London; and The Weird and the Eerie, Hockney Gallery, London.