EVENT DESCRIPTION
Tang Contemporary Art is excited to present the solo exhibition Asynchronous Affinities by renowned Thai artist Gongkan at the Wong Chuk Hang space in Hong Kong from March 22 to May 14, 2025.
Asynchronous Affinities marks a new phase in Gongkan’s creative practice, exploring displacement to challenge social norms, cultural codifications, and moral values while nurturing transcultural interconnections and individual development. The exhibition invites viewers to explore the poetics of in-between frontiers, gaps, and links across cultures and generations, as well as the interstices of sexual and gender diversities.
The initial impulse of this solo show relates to the concept of “Right Person / Wrong Time”, reflecting misaligned affinities. As a Thai artist with Chinese cultural roots facing global discrimination and social changes, Gongkan aims to engage audiences in introspection about personal and collective emotions, expanding possibilities for individual and social relations.
Gongkan’s creations combine ambiguous social situations—celebrating, crying, polluting, dining—generating narratives rich with contradictions and paradoxes. For example, a majestic golden Thai temple prang tops a silver unidentified object in black cosmic space, and a birthday cake transforms into a smoke-polluting factory. His art offers visitors various ways to experience struggles related to oppression and isolation while fostering altruistic relationships.
Gongkan has developed a unique oeuvre depicting a boy as a representation of himself alongside multi-gendered and multiracial figures passing through teleportation holes, creating interconnections between dreamlike cosmic spaces, cross-cultural contexts, and natural elements. His “teleport art” has gained international recognition, featuring striking minimal patterns, simplified figures, and a subtle color palette. Spherical shapes—like planetary rings, rainbows, and balloons—serve as contact zones and fields of energy, expressing resistance, sadness, eroticism, and criticality.
Gongkan’s painting technique layers deep transitioning colors, pushing painting to its limits. This approach makes tangible the paradoxical experience of a deep virtual imaginary that feels real and profound, while also transforming daily life into an extraordinary journey.
ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER
Graduated from Kasetsart University Laboratory School in 2007 and from Silpakorn University, Faculty of Decorative Arts, in 2011, Kantapon Metheekul, better known as Gongkan, currently works and resides in Bangkok, Thailand. After graduating from Silpakorn University, the artist moved to New York City, where he spent 3 years working in the creative departments of advertising agencies. In his spare time, he created street art and illustrations centered on the idea of him being transported through time and space to his homeland. Gongkan’s work, which he named “Teleport Art”, gained notoriety in the New York street art scene and later in Bangkok. The element of time is a predominant concept in Gongkan’s paintings: a surrealistic realm populated with peculiar portals and human figures in group or isolation, realized with graphic flatness. Despite the serenity fostered by the soft color palette and smooth application, the atmosphere is occasionally disrupted by the sharp incision of black on the canvas. Through presenting different visions of the present times or rewriting the past, the artist creates alternate realities in the process.His selected and recent solo exhibitions include “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, X Museum Beijing, (China, 2024); “No Heart Here”, Pingshan Art Museum, Shenzhen, (China, 2024); “No Heart Here”, MOCA Bangkok, Bangkok, (Thailand, 2024); “Monsters in You”, Over the Influence, Los Angeles (US, 2023); “Public but Private”, Tang Contemporary Art, Seoul (Korea, 2023); “Inner Place” Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing (China, 2022); “Gongkan: For Someone Who Hates the Rainbow”, Over the Influence, Paris (France, 2022); “Introspection”, Tang Contemporary Art, Bangkok (Thailand, 2021); “Tip of the Iceberg”, Over the Influence, Los Angeles (US, 2021); “Yestertedaytomorrow”, River City Bangkok, Bangkok (Thailand, 2019), etc. Selected group exhibitions include: “Post-me Generation: How to write about young artists”, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing (China, 2022); “Group show: Falling”, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing (China, 2022); “Art Macao: Macao International Art Biennale 2021”, Macao Museum of Art (Macao, 2021); “Retrospective Utopia”, Tang Contemporary Art, Bangkok (Thailand, 2020); “Pollution”, River City Bangkok, Bangkok (Thailand, 2020), etc
