Kawita Vatanajyankur – Bio

Thai-Australian artist Kawita Vatanajyankur creates works that offer a powerful examination of the psychological, social and cultural challenges faced by women in relation to everyday labour. In endurance performances, Vatanajyankur undertakes physical experiments that playfully, and often painfully, test her body’s limits. These staged scenarios are both unavoidably compelling and also uncomfortable to watch. The alluring, luminous colours in Vatanajyankur’s work are distinctive of her aesthetic and tap into the visual language of a globalised and digitally networked world in which consumption and instant gratification often prevail.

Vatanajyankur has achieved significant recognition since graduating from RMIT University in 2011. In 2016 she was awarded the Mitr Phol Young Australian Alumni Award, Thailand, and in 2015 she was a Finalist in the Jaguar Asia Pacific Tech Art Prize, Taiwan. Her work is exhibited in notable curated exhibitions, including the prestigious Thailand Eye exhibition at Saatchi Gallery, London and Bangkok Arts and Cultural Centre (2015-2016), Video Video, Campbelltown Arts Centre (2016), and BorderBody: International Art Festival of Photography, Video Art, Painting and Performing Art, Spain and Poland (2013). Her work is held in private collections in Australia and Asia.