Torlarp Larpjaroensook (Hern), born in 1977, is an emerging Thai artist based in Chiang Mai. At the age of 16, he embarked on formal art education at the College of Fine Arts in Bangkok and later graduated from the Fine Arts Faculty at Chiang Mai University with a BA (Visual Art) in Painting and Printmaking. His practice shuffles between art and design, and dwells between function and aesthetics. For Hern, the ‘books’ represented in the installation ‘Bookshelf’ represents the various trends and histories of contemporary art. These ‘books’ are actually appropriated thick impasto styled oil paintings based on popular art books that are widely and internationally available.With all books, the full value of their content is transacted when the book is read. However, in the case of art books, where heavy visual elements compliment the written word, a person could skim through its pages, focusing only on the pictures and assume that he/she has satisfactorily understood its content. For the artist who mainly reads in Thai, this case is not only usual but personal. As an artist, he often feels frustrated and unfulfilled when coming across such books. His access to knowledge to a wider, more international and current practice of art is limited to the number of pictures illustrated in a book. In ‘Bookshelf’, the function of the book is reversed and the ‘books’ are now consumed directly through its visual quality.
