nca | nichido contemporary art is pleased to present Tawan Wattuya’s first solo show “Queen”. Wattuya has been drawing portraits of a variety of subjects, including animals, venturing for the last few years to work with watercolor, a very difficult media to control. His subjects are quite diverse, from people in uniforms, and images taken from the media, to politicians. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes imposing, the faces of Wattuya’s portraits, changing completely once we get closer, seem as if they are distorted due to watercolor’s characteristic gradation and blurred effect, and we can finally catch a glimpse of who is hiding behind those smiles. Through his portraits, Tawan delivers a sharp criticism towards those problems that have been affecting Thailand, such as the continuous political turmoil, the conflict between ethnic groups, the social hierarchy, the importance placed on physical appearance, and so forth, and questions the contradiction and stereotypes we carry nowadays.

For this exhibition, Wattuya presents his “Queen” portraits, result of his research of the many beauty pageants around the world. The exhibition will open on March 1, together with Tawan Wattuya's book launch. We sincerely invite friends in Tokyo to join us for the opening reception.