This exhibit featuring some of my original paintings from the NAVIGATING THE BANGKOK NOIR book is part of the Bangkok Fiction Night of Noir event which will take place at Check Inn 99 Thursday January 8th featuring readings from many of Bangkok's leading Expat authors, all part of the burgeoning Bangkok Noir movement......
(Check Inn 99 is located on Lower Sukhumvit between Soi 5 and Soi 7 opposite the Landmark Hotel...the exhibit will be up for about a month from December 26th onwards....open from 6pm to 2am every night.....musical performances by Music of the Heart band starting around 8pm...many thanks to Check Inn 99 Bangkok's energetic and creative impresario Chris Catto-Smith)...........
"Spirit House Japanese Karaoke Sukhumvit" - Chris Coles (15x20 inches watercolor)
Every night before they start work, the hostess girls at the Japanese KTV bring offerings to the Spirit House....small bottles of red soda, shot glasses of Thai whiskey, bananas, a chocolate donut....asking the spirits to bring many Japanese business guys loaded with dough and ready for action.....
(already sold)
"Obsession Bar Nana Plaza" - Chris Coles (24x18 inches watercolor)
Nana Plaza's Number One Ladyboy bar, Obsession's sign says it all.......
(available for sale at 12,000 baht)
"Lazy Afternoon at Lone Star Saloon" - Chris Coles (24x18 inches watercolor)
A lazy afternoon at the Lone Star Saloon on Washington Square...he's been a regular since the end of the Vietnam War and she's been there for fifteen years, both of them well past their expiration dates, happy to share a smoke and a few beers.....
(available for sale at 12,000 baht)
"Party Time Voodoo Bar" - Chris Coles (24x18 watercolor)
Voodoo Bar is a mix of ladyboys and one hundred percent ladies, it is difficult to tell. Some say Thai ladyboys are sometimes so perfectly feminine, only their hands can give them away. With too many beers, multi-colored lights, pounding music and so many bodies moving, the only way to avoid a mistake for sure is to not go there at all. On the other hand, for whatever reason, ignorance or desire, some guys do..........
(available for sale at 12,000 baht)
"Reincarnated German Sex Tourist at Soi Cowboy" - Chris Coles (24x18 inches watercolor)
There are many German tourists who come to Bangkok to chase the bargirls. Every night, night after night, they never have enough. Until their two weeks are up and they catch their flight. In Germany, they dream about their Bangkok girls, hoping to find a way to come back and never leave. Some say when the German guys are re-incarnated they come back as soi dogs and wander around Soi Cowboy to their heart's content...........
(available for sale at 12,000 baht)
"Midnight Patpong" - Chris Coles (18x24 inches watercolor)
By midnight on Friday, Patpong’s full, twenty thousand tourists from Europe, the U.S., Australia, India, the Middle East and Japan, ten thousand girls, hundreds of ladyboys, plenty of beer, whiskey, endless stalls selling counterfeit goods, thirty or forty different disco tracks blasting out of the gogo bars, a world vortex of man woman interaction, a combination sexual theme park, shopping mall and inferno, fiercely consuming an endless stream of humanity and their desire.......
(available for sale at 12,000 baht)
"Happy Couple" - Chris Coles (24x18 inches watercolor)
A happy couple, they each have dreamed of the other, hoping to find what they have been missing in themselves. But what happens if what they see is something they have imagined, not what is actually there.....
(available for sale at 12,000 baht)
"Soi Cowboy" - Chris Coles (100x80cm acrylic on canvas)
The Bangkok Night's most iconic destination a neon wonderland filled with raucous bars, multiple music tracks, people from all over the world and thousands of bargirls who are mainly from the rural northeast region of Thailand called Isan.....
(already sold)
"Sexy Bar" - Chris Coles (80x100cm acrylic on canvas)
The neon sign says Sexy Bar and the blindingly bright colors are screaming for attention....but it's a quiet night, only a few customers, a couple of ladydrinks and very little action.......
(available for sale at 30,000 baht)
"Thaniya Plaza" - Chris Coles (80x100cm acrylic on canvas)
On Patpong's fringe, Thaniya Plaza is for the Japanese executive crowd in Bangkok. They are Thailand's largest group of Expats, owning and running most of the automobile and electronics factoories. Thaniya's set-up to look like Tokyo's Ginza with a vertical array of clubs, KTV's, bars and cozy hang-outs, over a hundred, all with colorful Japanese signs. The Thai hostess girls are dressed in kimonos and gowns and speak a little Japanese. Heloo, How are you, Please come back. They bow from the waist with heads tilted down. If a Western guy approaches, they turn and look the other way, sometimes pointing towards the little sign on the door that says, For Japanese Only.....
(available for sale at 30,000 baht)
Labels: art show, Bangkok, Bangkok Fiction Night of Noir, Bangkok night, Check Inn 99, Chris Coles, exhibit, nana plaza, NAVIGATING THE BANGKOK NOIR, nightlife, Noir, patpong, soi cowboy, Sukhumvit, Thailand
