Bangkok’s Between Memory and Becoming opened October 24: reading identity and migration through painting

Tang Contemporary Art’s Bangkok group exhibition Between Memory and Becoming opened on October 24, 2026, and runs until December 6. Curated by Cynthia Liu, it presents works by Daneenart Burakasikorn, Lewis Lee and Julia Phetra Oborne. The exhibition brings different cultural experiences together, encouraging a reading that begins with pictorial details rather than assigning identity a single label in advance.

Three works: compare brushwork and fragments of figures

Start with What Remains 1, a 2026 oil painting on canvas measuring 120 × 100cm. In the official artwork image, grey-brown is no quiet background: short white marks pass across the upper area, blue and dark red are scattered through it, and many boundaries disappear under another layer of colour. Rather than searching immediately for a specific figure, look at where marks gather or loosen, then step back to consider the overall light and dark. The same colour may read as a smear close up and join a larger form from farther away.

Full Moon, also a 2026 oil painting on canvas at 120 × 100cm, returns attention to figures and a scene. A bending figure, curved ripples and pale squares appear between blue-green and beige layers. The figure is not described as completely as in a photograph, nor does the grid organise the space neatly. The eye moves among the face, gesture and curves, as if the image has been temporarily assembled from separate fragments. This comparison makes memory a question that can be understood through composition.

From fashion imagery and life between cities to a woven landscape

The three artists’ experiences offer another set of reading cues. Daneenart spent years creating visual identities in fashion and popular culture before returning to her own painting in recent years. Hong Kong-born Lewis Lee grew up between Hong Kong and Shenzhen and is now based in Bangkok, connecting landscape, family experience and migration. British-Thai artist Julia Phetra Oborne works between Bangkok and London, gathering imagery from natural forms, cultural objects and stories. Their backgrounds remind viewers that a familiar-looking place in a painting may carry several periods of lived experience.

Blazing Sun brings material differences forward. Made in 2026 with oil and Aokin gouache on an Alpujarra rug, it measures 60 × 90cm. The official image shows blue sky, a red sun and mountains among geometric woven patterns; multicoloured triangles and diamonds are not entirely covered. The first two canvases invite comparisons of layered brushwork, while this piece incorporates the existing textile pattern into its composition. The eye moves between painted scenery and woven motifs, and the landscape is no longer simply a self-contained interior bounded by a picture frame.

Visiting River City: the gallery opens Tuesday to Saturday

For a clear viewing route, compare three kinds of surface—abstraction, figures and a woven landscape—before returning to the curatorial idea of cultural identity continually taking form. The exhibition has opened, but the gallery is generally closed on Sundays and Mondays. A visit should not be planned solely around the opening hours of the River City Bangkok shopping complex.

The Bangkok gallery occupies rooms 201–206 on the second floor of River City Bangkok, at 23 Soi Charoenkrung 24, Talad Noi, Samphanthawong. Official regular hours are Tuesday–Saturday, 11am–7pm, with public-holiday closures; enquiries: +66 2 000 1541. Check the official exhibition and works page and gallery visiting information when arranging your trip.