"The Color of Noir" - Steve Hands interviews Chris Coles for TRAVERSING THE ORIENT Magazine

Upstairs at Baccara - Chris Coles

The Koi Gallery opening of Chris Coles' latest exhibition, "Color of Night - Color of Day" (jointly with Anita Suputipong) was the most bizarre opening I've yet attended in Bangkok. Coles was simultaneously launching his new book, "Navigating the Bangkok Noir". His paintings (Color of Night) are expressionist portrayals of the Thai bar scene, in a riot of garish primary colours, and no greater contrast could be found than with Miss Anita's (Color of Day) delicate pastel portrayals of refined ladies with Ascot hats and cute animals. While Coles' work compares favorably with such German Expressionists as Franz Marc or Emil Nolde, Miss Anita's are more evocative of a Quality street chocolate tin from the 1960's.

But when I arrived at the opening just before the scheduled 7pm start, it was clear who most of the audience was there to see - a bevy of eight or ten Khun Yings made me hope they'd reinforced the mezzanine, which looked like it could collapse under the weight of the combined hairdos. Local film crews took pictures of Hi-So notables presenting bouquets to the ravishing Miss Anita, while everyone turned their back on the ravaged noir nightlife of Chris Coles' Bangkok.

But by 8pm, the Kuhn Yings and their entourage of bodyguards, limo drivers, camera crews, nephews, etc. had departed, and been replaced by a predominantly ex-pat crowd of notables there to see Coles' work -- like writer Christopher G. Moore, who wrote the intro to Coles' book, and two of whose books carry Chris Coles paintings on the covers. A Soi Cowboy sort of crowd who appreciate Coles for portraying the nightlife as it appears to them, not as Diane Arbus circus freak portrayals of mainstream photojournalism.

TTO: Tell me about your artistic training.

COLES: I went to the British National Film and Television School in England. I was a production student but it was the talented people around me that counted -- for instance, I worked with the cameraman Roger Deakins, who has since gone on to do most of the Coen brothers' films -- he did my graduation film. Working with these kind of people, I learned what makes things visually interesting.

My first job was on SUPERMAN as a gopher/runner in the Art Department for the genius Production Designer Stuart Craig. It was very interesting, the opportunity to just be in the room and hear the discussions, to see how Stuart and his group put together visual ideas.

After that I worked on SUPERMAN II and III. And SUPERGIRL, which luckily put that production company out of business, the the next film was going to be SUPERDOG which would have been really embarrassing.

My hobby has always been drawing and sketching, and my mother and her two sisters are all artists, so in the 1990's I took some courses at the Otis School of Design in Los Angeles which is a great art school. Then I came over to Thailand to do a big movie, and I bought a condo in Bangkok because it was so cheap and because I really liked Bangkok. I've lived in New York, London, Geneva, Vienna, Nairobi, but the Sukhumvit neighborhood of Bangkok is one of the great urban neighborhoods for an artist.

My sketches led to paintings and especially learning to love the French Fauvist painters. They hated classical art and Impressionism, which they saw as pretty and boring. The Fauvists made a point of offending the Impressionists. And then the German artists said -- we can do even better than that. They'd been through World War I, with all its voilence and dis-location, so they started to paint these really ugly, mean works -- Grosz, Dix, Beckmann. The fascists took great offense at these paintings -- they even banned Emil Nolde from painting completely.

TTO: So are you disappointed you haven't been banned yet?

COLES: Being banned is a double-edged sword. Art isn't considered important in Thailand -- it's not like some trendy club or famous movie star showing too much skin, or three young girls dancing topless on a truck -- art is way down the scale. In some ways it would be great, but banning here is totally Draconian -- no artist could function if they were banned. You're hungry for fame but you want to continue working.

Some gallery owners here like my pictures but they don't like the subject matter. I pointed out to one owner he had a special massage parlour next door, with 50 ladies and several hundred customers a day -- I asked him why he felt uncomfortable with that world portrayed on the wall of his gallery when the world itself was on the other side of the gallery's wall. He got tense, and said, "Yes, I know it exists, but I try not to think about it." And I said, "If you want it diminished, the first step is to realize what it is, the enormity of it, the effect it has on society. Unless you open up the discussion of it, how can you change it?"

Art and literature doesn't give something the stamp of approval merely by portraying it -- which makes sense to a Western mind but not to a lot of people here in Thailand. A lot of Thais say art should be pleasant, relaxing, which I think is a valid point of view. But in the West, art has a different role -- to jolt people out of their everyday life, to see things in a fresh way.

Soi Cowboy - Chris Coles

TTO: In terms of your subject matter, how do you feel about Soi Cowboy?

COLES: In the spectrum of such places, it's nowhere near as bad as some of them. The employees are free to come and go. Some of the bars are very successful, the girls working there are making maybe 50 to 100,000 baht a month. So from an economic point of view, they're doing very well, although from a personal point of view, it might be a very high psychological cost.

On the street level, there's a lot of neon. It's aesthetically very attractive, like watching a movie. A lot of bars now have an outside area, so you can just sit outside, chat and soak up the ambiance -- much like RCA. I use it because it's visually interesting -- there's a lot of situations, a lot of colour and a lot of movement.

Right now I'm trying to paint Sukhumvit Soi 3 -- I'm having a difficult time with it -- there's nothing that really works as entertainment, it's purely a very noir canvas, people doing very noir things. I go down there to work, not to enjoy it.

TTO: So what does "noir" mean to you?

COLES: The human being has many sides -- an idealistic side, he wants to help, to leave something better behind. However, the human being also has a noir side. It's very primitive. Darwinian, violent, selfish, mean, cruel, unfeeling....look at human history, where horrible events take place and millions get swept away. You have to shake your head at how bad the human animal is.

Bangkok Ladyboy - Chris Coles

TTO: Tell be about the "Bangkok Ladyboy".

COLES: She works at Nana Plaza. Some of those bars are really big, have 300 staff, a lot of Iranians and Arabs go there. She's a very successful ladyboy, she's in great shape, both her looks and her body, not an ounce of fat, a really high energy level. But I see her as a highly tuned predator. When I see her working on an Arab, a guy who left his robe in the hotel closet and is now out in his polyester shirt and gold chains, it's like a Discovery Channel documentary on the Serengeti Plain in Africa. Her eyes are lit up, her attention is 100% tuned to her prey -- her muscles are trembling, ready to spring onto this well-fed, juicy, plump, tasty, single Islamic male. I see them back in his hotel room at the Grace Hotel. I see her pouncing, ripping open the Islamic male -- he has no idea of how powerful and violent this predator is, he'll stand no chance. In some sense, she'll rip him to shreds, and return to the bar with his wallet, triumphant.

Sexy Bar - Chris Coles

TTO: What about your painting, "Sexy Bar"?

COLES: That's meant to be very ironic. It's blindingly bright, so your eyes practically hurt -- it's an unfortunately slow night with nothing remotely sexy. The girls are making a half-hearted attempt to lure a customer, a wandering ladyboy is half bored, there's no use bothering. Three guys are just talking to each other. It's the contrast between the huge visual effort, and the total boredom in front of it. They've seen it all and it no longer works.

Contrast that with an Iranian on his first night out on Walking Street in Pattaya. I try to walk right next to these guys, catch their reactions. He's straight from Teheran, visually over-stimulated, it's like a nuclear bomb has gone off inside his head. His brain is spinning, he's being hit with 50 music tracks, there are thousands of girls, boys, ladyboys, lights, signs blinking -- he's so overloaded visually and auditorially that his mind is like an overloaded computer, his critical faculties have totally stopped -- which makes him a great customer. And with all the ATM's and chemists/pharmacies actually right on Walking Street, and they're not selling Strepsils.....

I'm painting it (Walking Street) now, it's my primary focus, it's the peak of nightlife genius. It's much like a Thai Spirit House, it has all the elements -- offerings, superstitions, figures, non rational arguments. For an artist, Walking Street is like standing next to Niagara Falls.

BKK 101 Magazine's Steven Pettifor interviews Chris Coles

VN:F [1.9.7_1111]

please wait...

BKK 101 Magazine's Steven Pettifor interviews Chris Coles about his April Show at Koi Gallery in Bangkok, his new book of paintings titled NAVIGATING THE BANGKOK NOIR, and how he puts together his paintings from the Bangkok Night.

by Steven Pettifor - BKK 101 Magazine - April 2011

Known among Bangkok’s expat clique for his expressive depictions of the capital’s adult nightlife, Thailand-based American painter Chris Coles has paired up with Thai artist Anita Suputipong for his latest exhibition at Koi Art Gallery.

Celebrating the recent publication of his new book Navigating the Bangkok Noir, Coles’ raw vividness contrasts with Anita’s more tempered evocations of life in the metropolis.

Q: Bangkok's nightlife has been referenced in many books, films, and artworks. What fresh perspective do you bring to such a milieu?

Many books, films & artworks already out there that make use of Bangkok’s nightlife and either present it in a “glamorous” way or an “erotic/pleasure palace” way. They sort of go along with a lot of popular clichés and commonly accepted notions about the scene.

A number of my paintings from the world of Bangkok’s nightlife, are more portraits of the people inhabiting the “scene” rather than the “scene” itself. In these portraits, using clashing colors, distortion, an expressionist style of presentation, I try to capture not only the person’s surface and “face” but also what’s going on inside. For instance, while they might be “smiling” & “looking happy” on the surface, inside they are not “smiling” and, in fact, not “happy”.

In the paintings of actual scenes from the Bangkok nightlife, the bars, restaurants, discos, music/KTV places, etc., I also try to get beneath the surface presentation, the “nightlife/show business” illusion that has been ingeniously and carefully constructed and which serves as a complex, powerful marketing platform with which to attract, sell to and ensnare the “customer” in order to maintain the Bangkok nightlife’s enormous revenue flow.

I deconstruct the lighting, atmosphere, how the scene is populated/staffed, the use of intense colors, patterns, mirrors, distortion and disorientation. I try to show the psychological and economic relationships that are being conjured up, the alienation, the confusion, the various human deficits that are being met, the near overwhelming flow of sensory information and the human struggles that are present and in play. Also, what it “feels like” to actually be there, inside, “backstage”, how the experience of being there is processed and “perceived”.

Despite Thailand being known as the “Land of Smiles” and almost all the Thailand tourist guidebooks/photobooks being filled with pretty images of Thai people smiling, in my nightlife paintings, there is almost no one who is actually smiling.

Q: Your depictions of Bangkok nightlife draw parallels to Paris in the late 19th century by artists such as Lautrec or Degas. Where do you see similarities and differences?

I very much draw inspiration from the French Fauvist & German Expressionist painters who used non-realistic and saturated clashing colors as well as a distorted unrealistic style in portraying the people and settings of Paris nightlife circa 1900 & Berlin nightlife in the 1920’s.

Q: How do you capture your subjects, through sketches, photographs, or from memory?

A lot of what I do is spend hours very careful observing both the people and settings in the Bangkok night.

Some bars/scenes might have over 3000 lighting sources of all kinds of colors, lots of them moving or constantly changing tone and intensity, often multiplied by static and moving mirrors. To understand the lighting and colors and how they’re working might take me several hours of intense visual observation and mental cataloguing. Gradually, I’ve developed an intuitive knowledge of the lighting and color effects which I use in almost all of my paintings.

There might be several hundred people present, performers, staff, customers and bystanders, all of them in a constant state of movement, an endlessly changing flow of interaction and relationships, each dressed in a certain way, each lit by the various moving light sources, each going through a series of actions, endlessly adapting and adjusting their attitude and demeanour. I listen to many conversations, sometimes I even ask questions, for instance, why something is being done in a certain way or what is someone trying to do.

The end result of all this observation is the formation of my ideas and vision, which is basically the Bangkok Nightlife scene as a sort of darwinistic, ferocious world full of struggle, alienation, tragedy, with occasional glimpses of beauty, hope and redemption.

Then, I go to work as a kind of visual scavenger/garbage collector, looking for possible elements and images which I can use to convey my vision.

I basically don’t discriminate or care where I get the visual bits and pieces, they come from my entire visual world, from tv, trash cans, a piece of paper off the street, memories false and real, fuzzy camera phone reference snaps, other painters, for instance some of the painters of Berlin nightlife in the 1920’s or the French painters of Paris nightlife circa 1900, sometimes I do sketches, sometimes I just make it all up, sometimes I work from collages, and sometimes a combination of all of the above.

Q: Your art could be read as exoticising Thailand.

I try to avoid completely “orientalising/exoticising” the Bangkok night scene and the Thai and Asian people who inhabit it. There is no “Oriental Gong” or “Fu Manchu” or “Inscrutable Asian” or “Thai Air Smiling/Wai-ing Stewardess”. The various people are presented as fully-dimensional and complex human beings who are full of hope, struggle, dreams and suffering, not as “glamorized objects” or “passive/submissives” or even as “victims”

Q: In what way do your paintings move beyond the typical sex industry laden associations of Bangkok nightlife?

I think my paintings go far beyond the typical Bangkok sex business clichés. The paintings de-construct the Bangkok nightlife/sex industry. They pull/tear/rip the nightlife machine/factory apart and reveal the inner mechanics and personalities. My paintings do not “glamorize” or “eroticize” the nightlife. In fact, someone once pointed out to me that there is a very strong Buddhist message underlying most of my paintings of the Bangkok nightlife and that is:

“Desire is an illusion…….”

In my paintings I try to show what the elements are that go into creating and maintaining this very large and well-developed “illusion” or spectacle, the very high level of skill that goes into its marketing and its power.

Q: Have you exhausted the capital’s nightlife as a subject yet?

The Bangkok nightlife industry/scene is gigantic, employing directly and indirectly hundreds of thousands of people at all its different levels. It’s a significant percentage not only of Bangkok’s economic structure but of the entire Thailand economic output. It is full of color, human drama, interesting personalities and there is an infinity of stuff to paint.

But sometimes, I just can’t take anymore psychologically and physically and I stop.

For instance, I want to do a series of paintings based around the “Super Noir Arabs/Africans-in-Bangkok” scene which is centered around Sukhumvit Soi 3 and the Grace Hotel. I’ve spent many hours in that area on Friday and Saturday nights between midnight and 3AM when the area hits its peak of activity and crowds. There are so many strong colors, so many weird people, so much struggle, suffering, alienation. It is ripe fruit waiting to be plucked and painted.

But even for me, the “Bangkok Noir artist”, it is just too much Noir, too hopeless, too nihilistic, too lacking in any element of “entertainment” or “fun”, that I find myself just wanting to go home, take a really long hot shower and go to sleep.

Q: What will be your next focus?

I’ve been working a series of Noir type paintings set in Singapore which at first seems to be an unlikely place to find much “Noir” but once you dig past the surface version of Singapore, you discover there is a lot more there than just the shiny hi-rises and 5-star shopping malls. To me at least, it seems a much more “lonely” city than Bangkok, so the style of the paintings is less “Berlin 1920’s” and more sort of in the Edward Hopper direction. And color palette is more muted.

As a result of my last show being held at Liam’s Gallery in Pattaya, I spent some time there and was very surprised at Pattaya’s unexpected diversity and dramatic expansion, especially the tens of thousands of Russians, Iranians, Gulf State Arabs, South Asians and tourists from China. On a typical Friday or Saturday night, Walking Street has100,000 visitors and they are from almost every country on earth, all income levels and in unexpected social groupings.

For instance, a Russian family of four, Mom, Dad and two young children, having their photo taken standing next to a six foot tall Thai ladyboy. A tour group of female high school teachers from Chengdu, wide-eyed and in wonder at the ongoing Walking Street circus. A bunch of middle-class families from India, looking for a seafood restaurant amidst the chaos. Fierce looking Gulf State Arab Wahabis parading down Walking Street with their newly-acquired Thai girlfriends. Not to speak of the newest trend, ladyboys dressed up in Burqas.

Great neon, chaotic mixing of colors, music, situations. Plenty of raw visual stuff, more than enough for only one artist in one lifetime. So I’ve been doing mainly portraits of the different types of people who are wandering around rather than wider view paintings of the “scene”.

I’ve started researching/prepping for a series of Noir paintings to be set in Phnom Penh which is a very different city than Bangkok with Khmers/Cambodians very different than Thais. Different color palette, feel, atmosphere, a place in the midst of very rapid change with a lot of odd juxtapositions, interesting locations, an edgy quality, a lot of light and darkness.

I am also working on my 2nd book to follow the 1st one that is being launched on April 1st in Bangkok (NAVIGATING THE BANGKOK NOIR – Marshall Cavendish Singapore) and I will also keep working on my series of expressionist style flower paintings and some paintings set on the coast of Maine where I’m originally from and where I spend a few months every year.

http://bangkok101.com/2011/04/qa-chris-coles/

Colour of Day/Colour of Night, Apr 1 – 30
Koi Art Gallery Bangkok,
43/12 Soi Sukhumvit 31 Sawaddee |
02-662-3218 | www.koiartgallerybangkok.com

Bangkok Eyes on NAVIGATING THE BANGKOK NOIR

ANNOUNCEMENT BOOK LAUNCH & ART EXHIBITION All Welcome Friday, 7 p.m, 1 April, 2011 : Book Launch : NAVIGATING THE BANGKOK NOIR by Chris Coles 1 April - 30 April 2011 : Art Exhibition: Chris Coles' PAINTINGS ON EXHIBIT Location: Koi Gallery, 43/12 Soi 31, Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok, THAILAND "Noir" is a word that is quietly growing - nay, pushing it's way up into the English language like one of those giant luminous mushrooms in Alice In Wonderland. So then, what exactly is "Noir"? We are aware that it is derived from the French word for 'black', but then what? "Noir", while not surreal like Alice In Wonderland, does have an element of other-real - a distinctly darker real. Noir is one of those words that each of us feels he knows, if only on a visceral level - but no one can really get down to brass tacks and nail it down. Those that do try to define it either use too many words, or come back tomorrow and say, "What I meant by that was....". On the other hand, 'Noir' can, and has been represented through the arts, and entirely without words. (Even Charles Lutwidge Dodgson knew that in the altered, somewhat darker reality of Alice In Wonderland, Alice herself, the mushrooms and the Cheshire Cat, et al, would have to be illustrated....) Enter artist Chris Coles and his unique and sometimes outrageous portrayals of Bangkok's nightlife. The night-scene and it's variegated nightcrawlers have been captured freeze-frame in Chris Coles' imagination. - And then reflected back in black-light and neon in this kaleidoscopic series of paintings. Mr Coles', seemingly without effort, is the very first to have captured on canvas that elusive, nearly ineffable "Bangkok Noir" - he is a Bangkok original; to miss this exhibition would be to your own regret.... (All original works on display 1 April to 30 April.) AVAILABLE NOW ON LINE Copies of NAVIGATING THE BANGKOK NOIR by Chris Coles can now be ordered on the Internet at the following sites: 1.) Marshal Cavendish : http://www.marshallcavendish.com/marshallcavendish/genref/ShoppingCart.aspx?addToCart=24232 2.) At Noqstore in Asia & Singapore : http://goo.gl/11BDS 3.) Through Amazon in the UK, Europe & the U.S. : http://goo.gl/lAhKc

"Color of Day/Color of Night" Chris Coles Art Show Opens 7PM Friday April 1st @ Koi Art Gallery, 43/12 Sukhumvit Soi 31 in Bangkok

"Color of Day/Color of Night" Art Show April 1st thru April 30th at Koi Gallery, 43/12 Sukhumvit Soi 31, Bangkok (tel: +66-2-662-3218) presents Chris Coles paintings from the Bangkok Night & elsewhere.

Chris Coles will be on hand for the Opening Night, Friday, April 1st, 7 to 10PM, which is also the Launch Party for his new book of paintings titled, NAVIGATING THE BANGKOK NOIR, published by Marshall Cavandish Singapore.