Montri Toemsombat : Nirvana / Paradise - Reality / Illusion

Much a trans-cultural work,this series of performances interrogate the meaning of myths and thesubconscious print of their classical representations.Exploring theseboth in Asian and European imagery, the artist allows himself aninnocent and playful point of view on the most immutable images ofcollective subconscious, thus in turn permitting the onlooker to eventually altering them a bit.

The process finds its originality in the very sincere and respectful manners of the artist.This work is in itself a quest for ideal. Even-though does he nothesitate to physically incarnate western historical or sacred figures and symbols of absolute such as Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, Mona Lisa orMarie-Antoinette; his intentions do never appear insulting, even at first glance.

When working on these representations of the absolute, Montri Toemsombat chooses to not explore them through scholar or theoretical knowledge. Instead, he applies a willingly childlike look guided mainly by his instinctive sensibility. He does not try to tear the myth apart, but when incarnating these figures and reviving these instants of ideal(otherwise solidified in classical representations as well as in our own minds) he lets surprising new elements come out of the myth.

Thanks to the artist's lack of preconceptions, the audience itself is freed ofits own cultural and emotional formatting which allows it in returnto consider freely those familiar representations under a newperspective. Freed from the subconscious print of the myth, thespectator then becomes more than a passive simple product of his culture and myths; he becomes an actor, an individual person in front of his own culture.

In Montri's work, performances are always site specific; an intimate relationship between space and topic is developed: the location is an actor in the process of creation. It appears like location itself invites a particular classic myth representation. The recurrence of high places is to be put in relation with the universal concept of direct relationship between the notions of altitude / heavens. Therefore, in this work all performances took place in locations allowing direct vertical communication with the sky, on elevated grounds.

The outcome of this work is photographed. The pictures are then applied by the artist on a wooden frame of his conception wrapped in a Buddhist monk's robe fabric. Some specific parts (mainly faces) are torn apart and glued another parts of the picture. This final operation leaves holes in the scene, (where the orange monk robe is revealed) and invites the onlooker to a hide and seek game exiting his curiosity and interest.

From all these transformations, many new meanings can freely be found or developed by the spectator according to his own aspirations. The work iscalling for interpretation; it is a source of creative introspection. Long after it took place, the performances open doors in the onlooker's mind and generate several new layers of creation.

During summer 2007, Montri Toemsombat visited Brussels where he organised the set up a chapter of his reseach. This time, the western myth of marriage was to be explored.

Performance took place on the gothic tower of the City-Hall, culminating at more than a 100m...