Having grown up in rural Thailand surrounded by big branded drink signs such as Fanta, Coke and Pepsi, Thai born artist Pakpoom Silaphan suggests that over time these signs formed an iconic wallpaper of an era. Now, as an adult and artist he fuses the faces and bodies of famous figures including, Francis Bacon, The Queen and President Obama with these iconic brands to form a new form of pop-art in our modern times.
Placed on the foreign signs, which are due to such heavy branding still recognizable in the western world, Silaphan fuses the two together. Prior to studying Fine Art at Silpakorm University in Thailand, Siliphan would travel around Bangkok and Thailand as he lived his life, collecting these signs as he went. Originally he collected them as an emblem of his childhood, a memoir, a collection of his past. However after going to London to on a hiatus he returned and saw the collection in a new light, realizing how embedded in popular culture the signs were just as the artist he’d been studying in his Art degree. Thus the concept was conceived and birth was given to the new popular culture iconic pieces that he has grafted since.