UDOMSAK KRISANAMIS (Thai, born 1966) Heineken, 2000 collage, noodles, acrylic, and marker on canvas, 72 x 48” Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Sarah Norton Goodyear Fund, 2000.

Udomsak Krisanamis was born in Bankok, Thailand in 1966. At the age of 25, he immigrated to the United States settling first in Chicago where he attended the Art Institute from 1991 until 1993. Since the mid-1990s he has lived and worked in New York City.

When Krisanamis first came to this country, he taught himself English by reading the daily newspaper. As he learned the language through his reading, he began crossing out the words he knew. These densely marked sheets of newspaper soon became art materials for collages. This unique approach to collage making dominates Krisanamis’s art today. The materials he uses now include supermarket cash register receipts, transparent Thai noodles, old posters, and tea-stained photocopies from his kitchen table, among other things.

In Krisanamis’s hands these materials retain traces of their “trashiness” while at the same time they are transformed into richly dense surfaces. Works such as this one, when seen from a distance, often reveal random patterns. Upon closer inspection, one can find fragments of words, images, and other details in the detritus of the collage. His work is much admired for the abstract optical surfaces he creates that are infused with references to pop culture, mass media, and language.

- Jennifer Bayles, Educator for Special Projects