Interview With Poja Akratanakui
August, 2025
P.A. Specifically in the list of paintings on another google doc, are they from the same universe? Or from how many universes?
M.C. They are all from the same brain, I guess. I cannot define their commonality, but I can recognise when it breaks.
P.A. Would you be able to place your work on a timeline and identify which events in which painting happen before one another? Particularly I'm thinking about the vertical standing portraits - some are alive, some are dead, so are robot (no life?)
M.C. That set of portraits (Seven Sides of Sam) are a series which can be shown in any order. I am attracted to the idea of doing an ordered series, one which could tell a story in sequence, but in my paintings I have not yet done so. The closest I got to this was the series of digital images I did called Sufficient of Ryme.
P.A. Why are some paintings without people? What do you feel when the paintings are without people / bodies..
M.C. It is difficult to paint a landscape without a figure. I think that this is because we read landscapes as signifiers of the human psyche. The wonderful paintings of the Hudson River School rarely explicitly feature figures, yet almost always feature a tree, an animal or something else that serves the same function as a human. Essentially, proxy humans.
P.A. If you have to paint with color, what would you paint?
M.C. I believe that people with an intense engagement with color are born that way. All others (like me) have to fake our way there. I am not averse to painting with colour, but I am not a natural colourist. When I attempt a colourful painting, it is usually also dark... a bit like the moody paintings of an artist like Chaim Soutine or Caspar David Friedrich.
P.A. Could you please tell me again about the digital series The God of Details? I like how it is void of people and presents a sterile environment. But again why and what do you hope to depict here to the viewers? Why not any smallest bit of presence of life like a little speck of bacteria? Is it a view not made for human? Any institutional critique going on?
M.C. Well, like any decent artist, I put on my stupid hat before I start work. My initial idea was ridiculously simple: to create a set of spaces each of which were very different in nature to each other. However, I soon discovered that what I was really creating was an autobiography. There is my father’s workshop and laboratory, my studio, the art museums I visited when I was a student etc. That's the way things go... you start work on a project but do not discover its personal significance until much later. That being said, I would not describe this, or any work I have done, as being particularly personal. In this context, human figures seem superfluous.
P.A. "We talked about Orpheus and the journey to ‘another place’ and the consistent in search of something unattainable. Which of your works represents this kind of journey to you and why? (Not as a journey for artistic practice but the journey within the narrative of the work)"
M.C. Perhaps the series Sufficient of Ryme address this subject most overtly. I wrote that story as a way of addressing how important it is to develop and maintain a healthy relationship to the dead. It is important to honour them and respect what they have given to us, but it is equally important to not allow them to haunt us.
P.A. In the notes you gave me on your paintings, I was intrigued by the use of the phrase "needs glaze’ or ‘needs more glaze". Any important effects did this process made for you?
M.C. A glaze is simply a stage in the painting process by which the artist deepens and expands the tonal properties of the painting. It can make or break a painting. Therefore, it can be a very stressful part of the creative process. The way I paint, cannot accommodate many mistakes. Once a painting has failed, that is it. My failure rate is around 1 in 3… much better than it was.
P.A. I feel like there should be one gigantic major painting for the show. And maybe it would be interesting to do a triptych? Randomly I'm thinking of Hieronymous Bosch and The Last Judgment and all these front and back christian paintings choosing what to reveal in clearer detail, what to hide, what to come first / last within a framed universe...might be interesting to explore?
M.C. I have started two big ones now, but neither can be described as massive. Also... that space makes even large paintings look small. Perhaps I can make up for it by having a large series.
P.A. The source of light in your work other than fire, candle. Is it the Sun? The moon? Another planet? What do you portray most often?
M.C. For most painters, light has a symbolic dimension. It was well-expressed in the writing of Hildegard of Bingen who wrote about light as manifest... a power of God and of the mind.
P.A. Experiential or chronological? Is your work always situated in the past or the future?
M.C. Good question. The truth is that the history of humanity could be swapped with the future of humanity, and not many people would notice the difference. I think that this is why so many science fictions looks so retro. I guess then that what I am painting is future ‘history’.
P.J. What is death to you? How does it make you feel, how do you see it? (Sorry its a very existential question, I don't think I can even answer this too haha but maybe it is a concept that takes your work somewhere?
M.C. Around twenty years ago I went through a period when I lost several friends to death. Two of them were artists who killed themselves in their studio. For a long while after I was ruined as an artist... I could not paint. My reconciliation came with the realisation that loss can be celebrated, which is part of what I am doing now.
P.J. Why the need to paint scenes of destruction?
M.C. The destruction of a thing can reveal the structure and nature of that thing. For example, most of our understanding of the human body comes from a study of its many sicknesses. In the same way, we define the history of a people by their wars and revolutions.
P.J. Which of your paintings feels most utopian for you?
M.C. I’m not sure that this is an answer to your question, but I am unable to paint a woman in any way that does not celebrate them. In that sense, I am an old-fashioned heterosexual. That being said, I find that skeletons, zombies and robots are far more interesting.
P.A. Specifically in the list of paintings on another google doc, are they from the same universe? Or from how many universes?
M.C. They are all from the same brain, I guess. I cannot define their commonality, but I can recognise when it breaks.
P.A. Would you be able to place your work on a timeline and identify which events in which painting happen before one another? Particularly I'm thinking about the vertical standing portraits - some are alive, some are dead, so are robot (no life?)
M.C. That set of portraits (Seven Sides of Sam) are a series which can be shown in any order. I am attracted to the idea of doing an ordered series, one which could tell a story in sequence, but in my paintings I have not yet done so. The closest I got to this was the series of digital images I did called Sufficient of Ryme.
P.A. Why are some paintings without people? What do you feel when the paintings are without people / bodies..
M.C. It is difficult to paint a landscape without a figure. I think that this is because we read landscapes as signifiers of the human psyche. The wonderful paintings of the Hudson River School rarely explicitly feature figures, yet almost always feature a tree, an animal or something else that serves the same function as a human. Essentially, proxy humans.
P.A. If you have to paint with color, what would you paint?
M.C. I believe that people with an intense engagement with color are born that way. All others (like me) have to fake our way there. I am not averse to painting with colour, but I am not a natural colourist. When I attempt a colourful painting, it is usually also dark... a bit like the moody paintings of an artist like Chaim Soutine or Caspar David Friedrich.
P.A. Could you please tell me again about the digital series The God of Details? I like how it is void of people and presents a sterile environment. But again why and what do you hope to depict here to the viewers? Why not any smallest bit of presence of life like a little speck of bacteria? Is it a view not made for human? Any institutional critique going on?
M.C. Well, like any decent artist, I put on my stupid hat before I start work. My initial idea was ridiculously simple: to create a set of spaces each of which were very different in nature to each other. However, I soon discovered that what I was really creating was an autobiography. There is my father’s workshop and laboratory, my studio, the art museums I visited when I was a student etc. That's the way things go... you start work on a project but do not discover its personal significance until much later. That being said, I would not describe this, or any work I have done, as being particularly personal. In this context, human figures seem superfluous.
P.A. "We talked about Orpheus and the journey to ‘another place’ and the consistent in search of something unattainable. Which of your works represents this kind of journey to you and why? (Not as a journey for artistic practice but the journey within the narrative of the work)"
M.C. Perhaps the series Sufficient of Ryme address this subject most overtly. I wrote that story as a way of addressing how important it is to develop and maintain a healthy relationship to the dead. It is important to honour them and respect what they have given to us, but it is equally important to not allow them to haunt us.
P.A. In the notes you gave me on your paintings, I was intrigued by the use of the phrase "needs glaze’ or ‘needs more glaze". Any important effects did this process made for you?
M.C. A glaze is simply a stage in the painting process by which the artist deepens and expands the tonal properties of the painting. It can make or break a painting. Therefore, it can be a very stressful part of the creative process. The way I paint, cannot accommodate many mistakes. Once a painting has failed, that is it. My failure rate is around 1 in 3… much better than it was.
P.A. I feel like there should be one gigantic major painting for the show. And maybe it would be interesting to do a triptych? Randomly I'm thinking of Hieronymous Bosch and The Last Judgment and all these front and back christian paintings choosing what to reveal in clearer detail, what to hide, what to come first / last within a framed universe...might be interesting to explore?
M.C. I have started two big ones now, but neither can be described as massive. Also... that space makes even large paintings look small. Perhaps I can make up for it by having a large series.
P.A. The source of light in your work other than fire, candle. Is it the Sun? The moon? Another planet? What do you portray most often?
M.C. For most painters, light has a symbolic dimension. It was well-expressed in the writing of Hildegard of Bingen who wrote about light as manifest... a power of God and of the mind.
P.A. Experiential or chronological? Is your work always situated in the past or the future?
M.C. Good question. The truth is that the history of humanity could be swapped with the future of humanity, and not many people would notice the difference. I think that this is why so many science fictions looks so retro. I guess then that what I am painting is future ‘history’.
P.J. What is death to you? How does it make you feel, how do you see it? (Sorry its a very existential question, I don't think I can even answer this too haha but maybe it is a concept that takes your work somewhere?
M.C. Around twenty years ago I went through a period when I lost several friends to death. Two of them were artists who killed themselves in their studio. For a long while after I was ruined as an artist... I could not paint. My reconciliation came with the realisation that loss can be celebrated, which is part of what I am doing now.
P.J. Why the need to paint scenes of destruction?
M.C. The destruction of a thing can reveal the structure and nature of that thing. For example, most of our understanding of the human body comes from a study of its many sicknesses. In the same way, we define the history of a people by their wars and revolutions.
P.J. Which of your paintings feels most utopian for you?
M.C. I’m not sure that this is an answer to your question, but I am unable to paint a woman in any way that does not celebrate them. In that sense, I am an old-fashioned heterosexual. That being said, I find that skeletons, zombies and robots are far more interesting.
Interview with the curator Poja Akratanakuifor the exhibition ‘What Cannot be Forgotten, Must Be Celebrated’, BUG Gallery, 2025