Colors of Concord: The Grassy Plain

Artwork crafted with natural materials by Ponnapa Prakkamakul

Work by Artist-in-Residence Ponnapa Prakkamakul

August 21-September 16, 2023

Colors of Concord: The Grassy Plain features artworks created by Umbrella 2022-2023 Artist-in-Residence, Ponnapa Prakkamakul, based on a year-long collaborative project with Concord neighbors of color.

NOTE: Opening Reception and Artist Talk *rescheduled* to Sunday, September 10 from 2-4pm

 

Artist's Statement

I am interested in the relationship between humans and their environment, focusing on cultural displacement and sense of belonging. In my work, I explore new places using the painting process as a tool to experience, understand, and form connections with my surroundings. My mixed media painting reflects my immersive experience engaging with the landscape through the performative acts of searching, studying, and collecting natural materials to paint with, as well as sketching in situ. In the studio, the collected materials such as soil, plant, groundwater, and rust from found objects are applied on paper as the painting medium depicting the landscape scenes where they were assembled from.

For the residency at The Umbrella Arts Center in 2022-2023, I focused on landscapes related to the community of colors in Concord. Learning the history of the place through field research, museum visits, and walking tours, I selected to paint the places that I feel connected and related to either with their stories, belief, and sufferings as a person of colors. Apart from the historical landscape, I invited community of colors in Concord to share the landscape that they feel connected to. In contrast to the public space, all of them mentioned home, hometown, and people who made it feel like home. I hope this exhibition contributes to helping make Concord more diverse and inclusive.

 

Artist Bio

Ponnapa Prakkamakul is a multidisciplinary artist and landscape architect based in Massachusetts. Ponnapa holds a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture with honors from the Rhode Island School of Design where she received the Lowthorpe Fellowship Award upon graduation. Her past residencies include the David Bethuel Jamieson Artist of Color Residency, Mount Auburn Cemetery, Urbano Project, Residence Lab at Asian Community Development Corporation and the Pao Arts Center, Vermont Studio Center, and Manoog Family Residency at the Plumbing Museum culminating in four paintings in the museum’s permanent collection. Her work has been featured in the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and the Provincetown Banner. Ponnapa is a member at Kingston Gallery and a registered landscape architect at the interdisciplinary design firm, Sasaki.