Lot 250: MONTIEN BOONMA (Thailand 1953-2000)

Mother and child acrylic on canvas 49 x 34 in. (125 x 87 cm.) NOTES Mother and Child stands as testament to Montien Boonma's talent to straddle the span between European Post-Modernism and a Thai context. Montien's work can be read from a different perspective when the artistic interpretative language suits the viewer in question. It is when a word in a foreign language sounds nearly like certain words in our native tongue, but the meaning is totally different. Montien's Mother and Child speaks in a Post-Modern vocabulary to explain the traditional Thai culture; he has adopted such an international renowned theme dating back to the Early Italian Renaissance to speak the indigenous language. The theme unifies rather than discriminates between a Western and an Asian context because the theme of Mother and Child has come to be viewed from a social and not merely religious context. The figure of the mother is unidentifiable and thus the viewer is not to be drawn to her exact particularities but to the bold form of motherhood, which she epitomises. Montien's careful placement of geometric forms, framing the two human figures do not act as a foil as one would expect but compliment the depicted mother and her infant.