SINGAPORE — Thai artist Natee Utarit's monumental embroidered work of a classical European building facade is the first thing that confronts viewers upon entering The Private Museum, a non-profit private museum in Singapore situated in Osborne House, a colonial mansion on Upper Wilkie Road.
Graffitied onto the surface with spray paint is a fragment in English taken from the Dhammapada, a collection of the Buddha's sayings, that states: "The flickering, fickle mind, difficult to guard, difficult to control - the wise man straightens it as a fletcher straightens an arrow."
This is the opening salvo for Mr Natee's exhibition "Deja vu: When the Sun Rises in the West" at the museum.
Spread across the 19th-century mansion are paintings, sculptures, embroideries, stained glass and prints that portray the reversal of historic power dynamics between East and West.
The State of Mind (2019), by Natee Utarit, at The Private Museum. (Photo: The Private Museum)
Through these works, Mr Natee asks us to imagine what would have happened if the Buddha had travelled to Naples before the global spread of Western civilisation.
"The entry point of a leading Eastern figure influencing the West opens up so many possibilities of what the world could have been if the [peaceful] teachings of Buddha were widespread in the West," says Aaron Teo, associate director of The Private Museum.
"Would our world be like this? It's a timely exhibition given the current state of global politics when tensions are so high."
A continuation of Mr Natee's 2022 show at Silpakorn University in Bangkok, where he studied, the Singapore exhibition is being held in collaboration with Richard Koh Fine Art gallery and includes 47 pieces on loan from private collections and the artist's personal collection, including 20 works that have not been shown publicly before.
Thai artist Natee Utarit. Photo: Richard Koh Fine Art
A second exhibition, titled "Deja vu: Buddha is Hiding", is on view at STPI - Creative Workshop & Gallery, another Singaporean non-profit space.
While The Private Museum show captures the full scope of the "Deja vu" project, which Mr Natee began in 2019, the STPI exhibition is the culmination of his recent printmaking residency at its space and the concluding chapter of the series.
A well-known artist in Southeast Asia, Mr Natee held a mid-career retrospective at the Singapore Art Museum in 2010, the first of his major solo shows at international institutions.
He rose to prominence during the subsequent years when his still-life and elaborate figurative paintings that reference classical Western religious art became popular at auction.
Often commenting on Thai politics and society, his paintings have a surrealist bent and range from canvases depicting green plastic toy soldiers to monumental triptychs filled with complex tableaus populated with skeletons, Christ figures and taxidermy animals.
The seed for the "Deja vu" series was planted in 2018 during a visit to the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, while he was preparing for a show at a 16th-century church in the Italian city.
At the museum, he came across the Doryphoros, a Roman copy of a lost Greek statue famed for its classical proportions and balanced pose. It reminded the artist of the stance of a walking Buddha sculpture created by Italian-born Thai sculptor Silpa Bhirasri.
This led him to imagine a different past, one in which Alexander the Great never conquered Gandhara in 330BC, the area in modern-day northwestern Pakistan and northeastern Afghanistan that is known for Buddhist art reflecting Greek artistic influences.
Instead, in Mr Natee's parallel universe, the Buddha found his way to Europe before the Roman era. As he shared his teachings, Buddhist philosophy permeated Western culture and thought.
The Four Noble Truths: Torso (2022), by Natee Utarit, at The Private Museum. (Photo: The Private Museum)
For Mr Natee, Buddhism is the spiritual foundation of the East, the one thing that has withstood colonisation by the West and remains firmly rooted in the Asian psych.
By blending Buddhist iconography with the traditional European mediums of embroidery, stained glass and painting, Mr Natee raises complex questions about cultural hybridity and colonial conditioning.
"It is very important for me to question Western hegemony," Mr Natee says.
He recalls this weighing on his mind as early as his student days at Silpakorn University, which was founded by Mr Silpa.
Mr Natee remembers questioning his curriculum, which trumpeted the superiority of Western art.
"After graduation, these questions became even more vivid when I had to search for my true identity and artistic knowledge."
Separation from the Loved Is Suffering (2020), by Natee Utarit, at The Private Museum. (Photo: The Private Museum)
Among the most striking pieces at The Private Museum are a series of site-specific stained-glass works, echoing the colonial building's existing decorative stained-glass elements.
While this medium was historically used to adorn churches and share key Christian beliefs with the masses, Mr Natee overturns this in his stained glass series "Separation from the Loved is Suffering" (2020), which explores Buddhist beliefs. It shows a series of images of Buddha presiding over a blue, demon-like figure, symbolising the suffering that worldly desires bring.
Nearby sits The Supreme (2020), a bronze sculpture of a fragment of a seated Buddha. It is covered in carved text - evoking graffiti - from the Dhammapada on achieving a spiritual state of freedom.
"The oldest graffiti was found in Rome," Mr Natee says. "It was engraved texts for the purpose of recording. So, the actual meaning of [this] graffiti is for communication, not vandalism."
The STPI exhibition also features graffitied sculptures, except that these works are made of delicate, handmade cast paper, which evokes the texture of worn stones.
The sculptures are enlarged fragments of headless Gandhara Buddha statues from the artist's collection. Some are in velvety charcoal black, others in muted beige. A few torsos have the words "Apollo 14" carved into them - something he saw spray-painted on a wall near his studio in Bangkok.
Installation view of Utarit’s solo exhibition "Déjà vu: When the Sun Rises in the West" at The Private Museum. (Photo: The Private Museum)
Other highlights of the STPI show include The Wheel, a subtly embossed vermilion work depicting the wheel of dharma, a symbol representing Buddha's teachings and the path to enlightenment. The work evokes an ancient sandstone relief.
"It has elements of the East-West relationship, with motifs and details that are similar to the Roman Doric or Corinthian columns," says Mr Natee of the spokes of the wheel radiating from the centre.
Another series of silkscreens show plump cherubs surrounding a woman. Mr Natee uses gold leaf to imprint the word "love" onto the linen surface. In another version of the print, he uses a flocking technique to overlay the word in black.
Walking down a passageway at STPI, multiple images emblazoned with the word "love" can be seen, underscoring the importance of the central tenets of Buddhism and a key idea in Christianity.
Love Is (2024), by Natee Utarit, at STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery. (Photo: STPI)
Rather than pitting the religions in opposition, Mr Natee's works suggest the universality of virtue, according to the curator of the STPI show, John Tung.
At the same time, the artist wants to send a clear message about the differences between East and West.
"We have bodies of Asian descent shaped by Western styles and ways of thinking. We willingly conform to Western standards of knowledge and society," Tung says.
"This is an undeniable truth, but what is so important is how we preserve our inner Eastern spirit: our attitudes, beliefs and way of life."
