Thursday, March 25, 2021

My Sukhumvit Neighborhood

The book is an amiable ramble around the dense and lovely Bangkok neighborhood where I live and paint while I am in Bangkok. The neighborhood's boundries are, to the west, Asoke and the Terminal 21 shopping center, to east the Emporium and EM Quartier Shopping Centers, to the south Sukhumvit Road and Soi 23, 31 and 33......
My photo-essay book, MY SUKHUMVIT NEIGHBORHOOD, is available worldwide as an e-book or quality paperback on Amazon dot com......
My little cul-de-sac next to Srinakharinwirot University....
The view east from my building....
The cozy friendly Brainwake Cafe and Hangout at the bottom of Soi 33...
The Pegasus Hi-End Niteclub Spirit House on Soi Prasarnmit...
Another nighborhood Spirit House....so many...all over the place...each one unique and different...
Craft Beer Garden and Whisgars on Soi 23....
Iwane Japanese Coffee Cafe on Soi 23.....
New Hi-Rise Condo on Soi 23...opposite Crazy House Bar....
Soi Cowboy between Soi 23 and Asoke...
Every neighborhood needs at least one 7-ll....maybe a dozen!
The Spirit House next to the Interchange Office Tower...
Soi 33 in all its cluttered glory...
Asoke from the Sukhumvit-Asoke intersection...
BTS Station Asoke and Sukhumvit next to Terminal 21 Shopping Center...
The huge escalator in Terminal 21 Shopping Center....
My gym Fitness First on the top floor of Terminal 21...
The Interchange Office Tower at Asoke and Sukhumvit,,,,,
Mousse & Meringues neighborhood pastry shop on Soi 31...
Bao & Buns Taiwanese Cafe at the bottom of Soi 33...
Appia upscale Italian Bistro on Soi 31...
Price list for neighborhood motorcycle taxi rank...
The beautiful Esplanade connecting Phrom Phong BTS, Emporium and EM Quartier...
Emporium Upscale Shopping Center...


Link to MY SUKHUMVIT NEIGHBORHOOD on Amazon dot com.......



 

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Thursday, December 17, 2015

Flowers, One Butterfly and the Bangkok Night Show Opening in Bangkok 7PM Thursday January 14th........

"Blue Butterfly in the Bangkok Night" - Chris Coles

"Flowers, One Butterfly and the Bangkok Night" - Chris Coles
Many of my Expressionist-style noir paintings are drawn from the context of the Bangkok Night, a vast, multi-layered entertainment spectacle which involves all manner of people from SE Asia, Asia and the entire world and which takes place each and every night across the many layers and districts of the modern megapolis known as Bangkok.  
In this show, "Flowers, One Butterfly and the Bangkok Night", I am presenting some of my flower paintings, one painting of a Butterfly and a selection of paintings of people and places from the Bangkok Night. Which at first might seem a little odd but actually there is a certain idea behind it.
In all of my paintings, I try to convey a sense and feeling of the situation, person and/or visual object itself as well as a more generalized metaphorical vision. 
While my Bangkok Night paintings are drawn from and inspired by the people, visuals and ambiance of the actual Bangkok Night, they also present a metaphorical vision of a noir globalized modern world where people of every background and status mix and mingle in all sorts of ways, alienated, predatory and calculating, clinging to good intentions as well as bad,  with intimacy and feelings both real and imagined. With all sorts of consequences abd outcomes both intended and unintended.
But in the metaphorical more generalized sense, Bangkok's many thousands of Night Workers can also be seen as colorful, sometimes beautiful, often sweetly fragrant flowers which beckon to the many colorful butterflies and hungry bees floating by to pause, say hello and visit.
Tragically, the lifespan of these thousands of flowers is often very short, an all too rapid but inevitable transition between birth, blooming, replication, decay and death.
Similar to the butterflies and bees who are attracted by the flowers' colors, patterns and scent, who are hungry for the flowers' pollen, who are in a rush themselves to mate and replicate before their own brief moment of life in this world comes to an end.
And similar to the Bangkok Night's tens of thousands of sex workers and their hundreds of thousands of customers.
Opening: 7PM, Thursday, January 14th
Brainwake Cafe & Gallery
27/1 Sukhumvit Soi 33
(left at bottom of Sukhumvit Soi 33 near Peppina's)
Tel: 02-005-0026
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List of Paintings:
"Blue Butterfly in the Bangkok Night"
"Pink Purple Blue Flowers on Yellow"
"Four Purple Flowers"
"Sunflowers"
"Field of Flowers"
"Five Flowers"
"Mountain Flowers"
"Orange Flower"
"Turquoise Ladyboy in the Bangkok Night"
"HiSo Thai Guy at Pegasus Club"
"Ladyboy at Levels Club Soi 11"
"Boys Town"
"Thaniya Plaza Neon"
"Hello Girls at The Iron Club"
"Renoir Club Soi 33"
"Emmanuelle Ratchada"
"Beer Bar Asoke"
"Hollywood Bar Nana"
"Party Time Voodoo Bar"
"Rainbow Two Bar"
"Closing Time Nana Plaza"
"Midnight Patpong"
"Expat Marriage"

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Monday, August 03, 2015

Beer Bar Sukhuimvit Soi 22..................

"Beer Bar Sukhumvit Soi 22" - Chris Coles


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Saturday, January 31, 2015

Ladyboy Massage Lower Suk in the Bangkok Night.....

Ladyboy Massage Lower Suk in the Bangkok Night" - Chris Coles


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Friday, December 26, 2014

Exhibit at Check Inn 99 Lower Sukhumvit Bangkok between Soi 5 & Soi 7 Dec 26 thru Jan 2015 (part of at Bangkok Fiction Night of Noir Event Jan 8, 2015)...

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)

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Thursday, May 09, 2013

Young NGO Guy at WTF in the Bangkok Night

"Young NGO Guy at WTF in the Bangkok Night" - Chris Coles
In the heart of Bangkok's trendy Thonglor District, WTF bar/cafe/gallery is a beacon for well-heeled young Thais either going or having gone to universities in North America, UK, Europe or Australia and youngish Expats from the West trying to do Bangkok without the noir......everybody's hip, well-intentioned, alert and educated....lots of female Expats too, happy to have found at least one place in the Bangkok Night where not only are they welcome but actually noticed, approached and appreciated...........

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Thursday, April 04, 2013

Thai Police Guy Hard at Work in the Bangkok Night

"Thai Police Guy Hard at Work in the Bangkok Night" - Chris Coles
Every night, he works Bangkok's Sukhumvit District....dealing with people from all over Thailand, Asia and the World.......maintaining "law and order" amidst the near total chaos and dis-order of the Bangkok Night......

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Wednesday, April 03, 2013

Bar Girl from Surin in Bangkok

"Bar Girl from Surin in Bangkok" - Chris Coles
Her two kids are with her mother in Surin, living in a little shack on stilts.....she works at the bar in Sukhumvit twenty-eight days a month with two days off, rents a cubicle room for 2500 baht per month, spends 100 baht a day on food and transport....whatever's left goes back to Surin.........

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Tuesday, March 26, 2013

PAD/Yellow Thai Guy in the Bangkok Night

"PAD/Yellow Thai Guy in the Bangkok Night" - Chris Coles
Sometimes, the PAD/Yellow royalist guys pretend they are above, floating in a superior form of oxygen, detached and disconnected from the material earth.....but the owners and managers of the gigantic massage palaces in Ratchada and the 5 star Executive Clubs in Upper Sukhumvit know better...........

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Thursday, September 06, 2012

"German Expressionism and the Bangkok Night" at FCCT, Friday, Oct 19th

"Boys Town" - Chris Coles (80x100cm acrylic on canvas)
For anyone who might be interested, I'll be giving an illustrated talk at FCCT on "German Expressionism and the Bangkok Night" on Friday evening, October 19th, per the FCCT announcement below.  
Philip Cornwel-Smith will be providing the introduction and sharing his thoughts/overview on Bangkok's nightlife as a source and inspiration for art, music, literature and movies.  
Followed by a Q and A.

The talk coincides with the Opening/Launch of my "Paintings from the Bangkok Night" exhibition at FCCT  which will be running from October 15th thru November 14th.
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FCCT Announcement:
"Paintings from the Bangkok Night" Exhibition by artist Chris Coles
7pm, Friday, October 19, 2012
Free Admission
This special exhibition will present some of Chris Coles' most recent large-format acrylic paintings of various scenes and some of the people who populate the Bangkok Night, an almost infinite neon landscape that stretches from Ratchada to Thaniya Plaza, Surawong Boys Town, Soi Cowboy, Sukhumvit Soi 33, Nana Plaza and beyond; a world inhabited by people from all over Thailand, most of Asia and just about every country on Earth.

Chris Coles is an artist and filmmaker who divides his time between Bangkok and the coast of Maine. He is one of the first artists to explore the chaotic and ambiguous world of the Bangkok Night. His paintings, in the Expressionist style, are jagged and emotional portraits, revealing a raw and primitive layer of the human experience. A book of his paintings, "Navigating the Bangkok Noir", was recently published by Marshall Cavendish Singapore.

As part of the art show's Opening Night, Chris will give a short talk regarding the origins and style of his work titled, "German Expressionism and the Bangkok Night".

Philip Cornwel-Smith, author of VERY THAI and Founding Editor of Bangkok Metro Magazine, will introduce Chris and provide some thoughts on Bangkok's nightlife as a source and inspiration for art, music, literature and movies.

The FCCT exhibition runs from October 16 to November 14.

"Navigating the Bangkok Noir" is available at Kinokuniya and Asia Books stores, and also via the Internet (Bt500 to Bt600 baht, depending upon the supplier).

For more details go to the Chris Coles Gallery website at www.chriscolesgallery.com

For a map of how to get to FCCT @ Penthouse Floor, Meneeya Center, BTS Chitlom:  http://www.fccthai.com/FCCTMap.pdf

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Sunday, February 17, 2008

Italian Sex Tourist Nana Plaza Bangkok

Italian Sex Tourist Nana Plaza Bangkok - Chris Coles/2008

......he's partied in Estonia, Prague, Havana and Rio, even little Costa Rica..........but he always comes back to Bangkok........Nana Plaza, Soi Cowboy, Patpong, Sukhumvit, the mighty Ratchada. There's something about the ambiance and smiles, the slender girls........the music, the street stalls......the feeling of another planet beyond space and time.................

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