Jim Algie Reviews "Navigating the Bangkok Noir"

Bangkok's True Colours At Night

By Jim Algie

Bangkok at night is one of the world's gaudiest cities. Neon signs for karaoke bars and massager parlours compete with the fluorescent tubes in restaurants and bars, and lurid goings-on in establishments catering to the world's oldest obsession.

Chris Coles has brought out these true colours of the nocturnal capital in the series of paintings that make up Navigating the Bangkok Noir.

What some may see as a new (and equally virulent) strain of German expressionism - which the artist himself happily admits to - that speaks to the decadence of the pre-Nazi Weimar Republic and the Thai capital of today - these watercolor-on-paper images are also coloured by pop art references, which allows Coles plenty of leeway to satirize as he seduces.

In comic-loving Asia, some of these subjects become caricatures of themselves, while some of these images lampoon that very same cartoon culture ("Cartoon" being a popular Thai nickname for girls) and the kind of kitsch that gives Bangkok noir a comical air.

Almost stripped of their identities, the subjects of these paintings, the bar babes and the customers, the boozers and malcontents, blend together in a way that suggests dehumanization.

But the captions allow the painter to paint these subjects with a little more depth, arousing sympathy for the prostitutes and setting the scenes with vignettes about the customers who are anything but stereotypical lechers: "Timothy's been in Bangkok for ten years, the Director of Asia Marketing for a leading luxury goods company. He spends his days in a gleaming office tower, reviewing the last campaigns, checking demographics, chasing down manufacturers of counterfeit goods. He's built an Asian luxury goods empire and made a few million along the way. A regular at Pegasus, the Mamasan knows him well, as do many of the two hundred girls. He brings out-of-town clients there, as well as the guys from headquarters. The smiles, beauty, and style leave them dazzled, dizzy and grateful, an ultimate boys night out."

The wordsmithing side of Bangkok's night strife has been well documented, but Chris Coles is painting the town with different brushstrokes and shades of gaudiness in this book and his exhibitions.

Jai Roon Reviews "Navigating the Bangkok Noir"

Chris Coles Paintings and Social Commentary.......

 By Jai Roon

Since writing pros James A. Newman and Jim Algie have both written extensive reviews on this book and both reviews are excellent, I'll keep mine brief.

I remember discovering the art of Chris Coles over 10 years ago. My first thought was: this guy seems interesting. Nobody is doing what he is doing. Dozens had written about the Bangkok Night before and dozens have written about it since but in the 21st Century, Chris Coles has been the indisputable leader in painting the darkness and the neon of Bangkok's notorious night paths.

But he does more than paint. He provides the quintessential social commentary needed with every colored frame. Chris Coles is to Bangkok Noir as Gary Trudeau was to Washington D.C. politics. The efficiency of what he gets across with the written word is classic story telling, usually with conflict involved, not often with catharsis.

Like many great artists, Chris Coles is misunderstood at times. There are some who see him as a proponent or cheerleader for the pay for play sex industry in Thailand. Not true. Chris has merely been making an extensive documentary in his art for over a decade.

The word prolific is overused but it is not overstated in his case. In NAVIGATING THE BANGKOK NOIR the very best of Chris Coles over 1,000 paintings have been selected.

Christopher G. Moore writes an excellent Forward to the book explaining the world of noir that Chris Coles captures so well.

I have no idea which authors will be remembered best in the 22nd Century for having written about the Bangkok night in the early 21st Century, if any at all. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the legacy of Chris Coles, the art of Chris Coles and the words of Chris Coles will linger well into the 22nd Century and beyond. His art, his documentary will be a reminder of a dark time. A time that once was and never will be, exactly, that way, again.

Kenneth L. Kantor Reviews "Navigating the Bangkok Noir"

Complex and Powerful Modern Expressionism

By Kenneth L. Kantor

On the one hand a free-form fantasy and on the other a fascinating ethnographic documentary, "Navigating the Bangkok Noir," is a powerful work. 

With its haunting, ghost-like figures and its chaotic, yet desolate, landscapes, Coles' work has become one of the favorites in my collection. This is a rich and compelling effort that I find myself drawn into again and again. Each time, something new and unexpected is revealed. It is rare to find an artist who combines such a skilled and playful sense of aesthetics with an unblinking eye for the turbulence which lies hidden just below the surface of a smile. Observing the paintings, I find myself sometimes forced to look away... to mitigate their intensity or to reassure myself that I am safe in the comfort of my own world.

Rooted in the Expressionism of the early 20th century, Coles' work employs deceptively simple imagery to illuminate complex emotional moments. Coles himself stands outside of any particular epoch; his images are simultaneously quite modern and intensely primitive. In spite of, or perhaps because of the decision to work in a social context alien to his primary audience, he manages to speak strongly to universal human feelings like alienation, hope, fear and desire.

Wid Muenster Reviews "Navigating the Bangkok Noir:

"Midnite Lower Sukhumvit" - Chris Coles

Navigating the Bangkok Noir  by Chris Coles

Outdated Bangkok hands will no doubt be familiar with the function of artist Chris Coles whose portray are being slotted into the new style called Bangkok Noir, a genre that covers each art and literature of which the crime novels of John Burdett are 1 instance. Lately there has been more than a little excitement around this motion and now American artist and Bangkok resident Chris Coles has produced a book of paintings,, an album of expressionist functions, mainly watercolours on paper, known as Navigating the Bangkok Noir.

Patpong and Soi Cowboy Night Scenes

To these familiar with the bar scenes in Thailands capital, the paintings will strike a familiar chord. Elegance and tragedy can be seen in the eyes and posture of the ladies whose tales can be study from the paintings a vignette accompanies every portrait to help the viewer of the function or reader of the painting to understand the situation. The captions work to merge the visual and the printed word, the entire being a sociological essay on the red mild district of Bangkok.

Evening scenes feature individuals from all walks of lifestyle and from many nations, unhappy-eyed for the most component, broken and searching anything but happy. Yet the vibrant, jewel-like colors are this kind of a distinction that a glib reading of the melancholy could be wrong, especially if we study it from a western-centric point of see,. These denizens of the night are very much part of the genuine Bangkok, not an aberration as some would have you think. Chris Coles has carried out them a favour by rescuing them from the Patpong Disneyland in which they are frequently set and re-instating them on the canvas of Thai life particularly the red-light areas of the money.

Criminal offense Writers and the Artist Chris Coles

Although the style hyperlinks criminal offense writers like John Burdett and Christopher Moore to the artist, the thriller writers’ work is relatively various as plots and motion seem to give lifestyle and option to the individuals who inhabit these stories. One feels they have free-will of a type while the people in Chris Coles’ photos appear to look out, glassy-eyed on to a world in which their horizons are limited. Nor are these the individuals the (frequently) drunken farang see via rose-tinted glasses, the mythical happy hookers this is how it is, the bleaker, seedier aspect of Bangkok life,.

The Photos

Every image is a single event, a standalone glimpse of the underbelly of Bangkok, not a complete story. There are simply a few names to put to the faces, and you feel that Chris Coles has a great well of sympathy for these evening individuals. He does not even seem to dislike their clients much but looks on them dispassionately, even though they are usually painted as physically gross.

Crime writer Christopher Moore has written an exceptional foreword to the exhibition catalogue for Navigating the Bangkok Noir. But then, Navigating the Bangkok Noir is more than a catalogue: it is a pictorial history of lifestyle in Krung Thep, the Metropolis of Angels so known as, a metropolis exactly where there are much more sinners than saints.

Navigating the Bangkok Noir by Chris Coles is printed by Marshall Cavendish (2011) and is accessible from all great bookshops and from Amazon.com at roughly twelve

Bangkok 101 Reviews "Navigating the Bangkok Noir" in July 2012 Issue

 

Bangkok 101 magazine's July 2012 issue short but perceptive review of "Navigating the Bangkok Noir" (Marshall Cavendish)....

"Love it or loathe it, Bangkok's notorious nightlife industry is infamous around the world.  It is into this netherworld that American artist and filmmaker Chris Coles explores.  

Using an exaggerated cinematic approcah, Coles uses Expressonist-style watercolour paintings to portray the City of Angel's vibrant yet upsetting nightlife, using thick bold lines and clashes of colour to blur the lines between real emotion and performance art.  

One question continually arises: what's really behind those smiles?  

Unlike the exhibition that accompanied this work, the book answers that question with clarity as Coles provides background stories and anecdotes--without disclosing a full biography--about his subjects.  

Neither callous nor demanding sympathy, this book allows you to navigate one man's ambivalence to the self-proclaimed 'Land of Smiles'".