How I see it /

TCDC Bangkok

Explore the themes of self, emotion, thought, and the outside world from the perspective of HRH Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana through the most extensive collection of her drawings and paintings.

The exhibition is arranged around five different themes. 
1. Self-searching 
Sketching provided a point of departure for the Princess’s journey of self-discovery and her interest in art. Marking an important turning point in her life, sketching gave her a way to begin to understand herself. It gave her a focus and a way to communicate her thoughts and feelings through lines and color. Her sketches are a record of an important part of the Princess’s early life.

2. Illusions 
Images of a closed mouth or a face with just one seeing eye are symbols or repression and reflect the Princess’s own frustration at being unable to give full vent to her thoughts and feelings. Her collages, which combine tinted photographs meant to comment on and criticize social conditions and current events, are the Princess’s preferred technique in preparing the designs for her fashion collections – designs that have won wide admiration.

3. Beginnings 
These paintings of flowers are an expression of the Princess’s conception of beauty, emotion, connectedness, age and social standing. They also have a religious significance and are symbols of “purity. Whenever the Princess takes her art in a new direction, she begins by painting flowers.

4. Free Spirits 
For the Princess, animals are representatives of nature. Animals – each with their own particular nature – symbolize independence, freedom, love and unrestricted self-expression. In these paintings, butterflies and moths are symbols of day and night. Piranhas represent humor. Peacocks are elegant figures of strength and the instinct for self-preservation, and the rooster is associated with the birth year of her younger brother.

5. Faith & Anguish 
The paintings in this part of the exhibit reflect the Princess’s ideas about religious faith and its relation to such concepts as love and pain. These are evident in images of the human anatomy, an embrace, and the Buddhist wheel of dharma.