Phaptawan Suwannakudt

Phaptawan Suwannakudt is a Thai artist Based in Thailand and Australia. From the 1980s to the 1990s, she led a team of painters who worked in Buddhist temples throughout Thailand. In 1996, She relocated to Australia and completed an MVA degree at Sydney College of the Arts.

She has exhibited extensively in Australia, Thailand, and internationally. Her installation work, Knowledge in your Hands, Eyes and Mind, in Beyond Bliss the Inaugural Bangkok Art Biennale (2018–9), was reconstructed as part of Asia TOPA (Arts Centre Melbourne, Melbourne, 2020). Selected exhibitions include Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia (Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, 2017); Retold-Untold Stories (Chiang Mai University Arts Centre, Chiang Mai, 2014 and SCA Galleries, Sydney, 2016); Thresholds: Contemporary Thai Art (Sundaram Tagore, New York 2013); and the 18th Biennale of Sydney: All Our Relations (Sydney, 2012); Open Letter, a touring exhibition across South East Asian countries, (2005–2006); El Poder de Narrar (Espai d’art Contemporani de Castelló, Valenciana, 2000); Women imaging women: home, body, memory (Cultural Centre of the Philippines, Manila 1998). Phaptawan has been a recipient of the NAVA artist grant (2010, 2013); a grant from the Office of Contemporary Art, Ministry Culture of Thailand (2012); the Australia Council grant (2001, 2011, 2018). In addition to this, she has taken part in the Asialink Arts residency program (2014). Her works are in public collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Art Gallery of Thailand, Art Bank Sydney, and Rama 9 Art Collection.

Suwannakudt primarily works with traditional Thai mural painting and has been involved in numerous public projects and a series of individual artworks. She has long been interested in art as a means to connect and empathise with people through the process of storytelling. Through art, Suwannakudt desires to reach beyond the limitations of language, identity, and temporality to promote intimate communication with individuals. Her works are exhibited widely in Australia, Thailand, and internationally through solo and group exhibitions.

As an interdisciplinary Thai-Australian artist whose works are informed by Buddhism, women's issues, and cross-cultural dialogue. She co-founded Womanifesto in 1995, an international art exchange program focusing on women artists.