Storytellers of the Town – Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
Image: Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, 'The Class', 2005 (still), single-channel video installation. Image courtesy of the artist and 100 Tonson Gallery, Bangkok.
Confronting images and startling installations feature in Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s new exhibition, Storytellers of the Town at the 4A Gallery.
The artist explores forbidden realms, such as death and insanity, in her work. For instance, The Class is a cinematic display of a lecture to the dead. The corpses lie still and white shrouded in the foreground as the teacher paces desperately, attempting to instil knowledge into the frozen forms. The blackboard in the background evokes memories of universal anonymous classrooms, and the whole is a shocking comment on the limits of communication.
The Class is complemented by other presentations of stark realism. Great Times Message, Storytellers of the Town, The Insane, depicts disturbed women telling their stories. Their hazy images and distraught voices produce a disorienting cacophony of visual and oral noise.
Powerful yet sympathetic, this is an exhibition of an artist who defies the limits of conventional discourse. (LR)
Until May 10, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, 181-187 Hay St, Haymarket, free, 4a.com.au
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