Confronting Fear: Samsara and Non-Duality in Art – Online Artist Panel

Confronting Fear: Samsara and Non-Duality in Art

Online Artist Panel via Zoom

​What’s there to be afraid? This panel will delve into the concepts of samsara, non-duality and compassion in art and how they are incorporated into the artists’ fearless practice.

Panelists: Phaptawan Suwannadukt, Kristina Mah, and Nell.

Moderated by Rachael Kiang.

About Phaptawan Suwannadukt:

Phaptawan Suwannakudt works in interdisciplinary forms that include painting, sculpture, and installation. Her work is based on lived experience and informed by socio-political issues through telling stories and intersections between different human experiences. It has often dealt with issues of empathy and commensurability informed by Buddhism, women’s issues, and cross-cultural dialogue. She was born in Thailand and trained as mural painter in her father’s workshop, the late master Paiboon Suwannakudt. She later led a team of painters that worked in Buddhist temples throughout Thailand during the 1980s-1990s. Phaptawan relocated to Australia in 1996 and completed an MVA at SCA, Sydney University. She has exhibited extensively in Australia, Thailand and internationally including the18th Biennale of Sydney (2012); Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia, Museum of Anthropology, UBC, Vancouver, Canada (2017); Bangkok Art Biennale, Thailand (2018); Asia TOPA, Art Centre Melbourne (2020); The National at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2021); Line work: The River of the Basin, Penrith Regional Gallery (2021); ESOK Jakarta Biennale, 2021 and a project Leave it and Break no Heart curated by Patrick Flores at 100 Tonson Foundation, Bangkok Thailand, 2022. Her works are in public collections including the Art Bank Sydney, the National Art Gallery of Thailand, Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the National Gallery of Singapore.

About Kristina Mah:

Kristina Mah is an artist, design researcher and athlete. She first studied Arts, majoring in French Studies and Philosophy, then from 2007-2010, she studied Design Computing at the Design Lab at the University of Sydney. In 2014, she travelled to Nepal to do the November Course at Kopan Monastery. This was a hugely influential trip, that would inspire her to embark on a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction. Her doctoral research investigates how traditional ritual and contemplative practice can inform the design and the development of technologies and interactive systems that support or embody compassion cultivation. In 2018, she created a public artwork, Wish Happiness, that was exhibited at Vivid Sydney.

About Nell:

Nell’s practice encompasses conceptual and performance art, painting, sculpture, music and immersive installation. Her art addresses big issues, such as life and death without fear, through a distinctive aesthetic and iconography featuring references to religion mixed with her first passion, rock ‘n’ roll. Born in 1975 in Maitland, Nell moved to Sydney in her late teens to attend to art school. Her studies took her from Sydney College of the Arts to the University of California, USA, and the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France, with influential mentors that included Lindy Lee, Joan Jonas, John Baldessari and Annette Messager. Across two decades, Nell’s work has been included in over 250 exhibitions in Australia and abroad. Nell has collaborated with the iconic fashion label Romance was Born on wearables and a large-scale exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria and has delivered a number of public artworks including Eveleigh Treehouse with its much-admired public engagement component. Nell is represented by STATION, Melbourne and Sydney and is a 2021 NSW Creative Industries Resident at the Powerhouse Museum.

Image credit: Phaptawan Suwannakudt, The Bamboo tale: stories of the encounters, 2021 (detail view)