ARTIST GALLERY
The exhibits at Asia Pacific Cultural Center, 3513 East Portland Avenue, Tacoma 98404 (our temporary address) is open to the public from 9:00 AM to 5:00 pm. Please let the office know of your visit by calling 253-383-3900.
Two Thailand Artists now showing their work at the APCC Gallery
Artist Reception:
August 24, 2004, from 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM. Join us for an exclusive reception featuring the remarkable works of two Thai artists, Choothai Chaiboonruang and Variya Na Korat Tosti. This event offers a unique opportunity to meet the artists, explore their captivating creations, and enjoy light refreshments in a cultural celebration of Thai art and heritage.
Click here to sign up for this FREE event.
Choothai Chaiboonruang
The journey from Thailand to Seattle as a teenager has shaped his multifaceted career in both music and visual arts. A gifted musician with a deep appreciation for traditional Thai music and an accomplished guitarist, Choothai’s artistic pursuits extend beyond sound into the visual realm. His passion for drawing and painting, nurtured through art classes, is evident in his evocative black-and-white sketches. These pieces capture the essence of Thai life, depicting native domesticated animals, rustic huts, and figures adorned in traditional Thai performance costumes. Each work reflects his profound connection to his homeland, offering viewers a glimpse into the rich cultural tapestry of Thailand.
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Variya Na Korat Tosti
With a Bachelor’s degree in Art from Rajamanala University of Technology in Korat, Thailand, Variya Na Korat Tosti has a robust background in art, sculpture, and ceramic design. Her early experiences include working at the Umdang Ceramic Company in Ban Dankwian, a renowned ceramic hub in Thailand, where she collaborated on developing export-oriented pottery designs. Variya’s talents in sculpture are evident in her large-scale projects, such as the 40-meter reclining Buddha at Wat Pa Sirimangkalaram in Khon Kaen City, statues of the revered monk Luang Lu Min, and lifelike sculptures of elephants at Wat Non Kum in Nakhon Ratchasima.
Since relocating to the United States in 2012, Variya has continued to promote Thai culture through art, education, and cultural programs. Now serving as a Cultural Program Coordinator at the Asia Pacific Cultural Center in Tacoma, WA, she remains dedicated to her passion for art and sculpture, enriching the local community with her diverse skills and cultural insights.
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Don’t Miss This Cultural Experience!
This event at APCC is more than an art exhibit—it’s a celebration of Thai culture and creativity. We invite you to join us for an afternoon of art, culture, and conversation with these two exceptional artists.
Join us for an evening with renowned Artist Kim Bong Jun
Saturday • June 22, 2024 • FREE
4:00 pm - 7:00 pm @ APCC - 3513 E. Portland Avenue, Tacoma
Please call 253-383-3900 or register online at https://bit.ly/apccartistkimbongjun
Light refreshments will be served.
Join us for an inspiring evening with Kim Bong Jun, a celebrated Korean artist whose work spans over 40 years of sculpture, painting, storytelling, and cultural activism. Born during a time of significant political and cultural change in Korea, Kim Bong Jun has dedicated his life to preserving and revitalizing folk traditions, myths, ceremonies, and advocating for basic human rights. His efforts have sparked a movement towards reconnecting with land-based cultures and fostering a global consciousness.
As the founder of the Museum of Mythology in Korea, Kim Bong Jun, now 70, aims to share his unique journey and vision with an international audience, building meaningful relationships through his original works and experiences. Don't miss this opportunity to engage with his powerful art and stories.
Exhibition Purpose
Due to colonization and war, Korean society has been in a period of political upheaval and transformation. When I started creating art, state violence and anti-human rights laws were the norms of these nascent political regimes backed by global superpowers. I expressed my life and the struggle of our people through art, often addressing state-sanctioned violence, land grabs and various forms of political repression. In solidarity with farmers' associations and labor unions, my art and cultural work reflects the struggle of laborers and farmers and advocates for their dignity and rights. Supporting many peace movements, I feel the pain of the war and division of my country that has not yet ended. After graduating from art school and reflecting the life around me through art and writings, I became blacklisted as a violator of the 1980 Gwangju Democratization Movement's 5.18 declaration and ran away as a wanted man for about a year. The sheer hypocrisy of so-called democratic principles coupled with the iron fist of state sanctioned violence became a rudder for my art as a young adult.
In order to create paintings that resonated with the people, I searched for and created a quick and easy visual art grammar called 'Asian brush'. I also saw the amazing self-sustaining power of traditional folk culture in the Joseon Dynasty through our folk tales and songs, mask dances and nongak. Our traditions were not dead or outdated, but alive and reinvented as an empowering aesthetic in various people’s movement and folk scene. I also developed Buddhist art into modern paintings, and recreated the folk painting tradition of Buddhist art, so my art has been called the people's art as it reflects the conditions and hearts of the masses. My forty years of creation has taken me from supporting labor peasants to human rights and a true democratic peace. Now, at the age of 70, I have entered a new phase of my life’s work. I see my work focused outside of Korea to share our culture, history and struggles to build meaningful relationships with a global family towards our common good.
I have been doing various genres of art and have curated representative works in six genres that I’d like to bring outside of Korea: 12 large paintings (about 500x120 cm each), 30 terracotta sculptures, 40 paintings (oil and acrylic), 100 prints, 50 books and poster flyers, etc., so I am ready to share at a large exhibition. After visiting and building relationships in the U.S. for a few years, I want to add to the exhibition by drawing America with the eyes of a Korean artist. I have accumulated a lot of works as a full-time artist for 40 years and would be honored to share my works during this first of many trips and recognize that galleries, museums and other cultural spaces have their own timeline and process so if it does not work out this time, I would like to build relationships to show my work in future visits.
My art is subtly related to the Korean Global Wave, a fusion of Korean indigenous culture, which has a long history of Hallyu, and Western globalized culture to create a unique culture of an East-West convergence. The various and unique character of Hallyu draws global attention to not only in Hangeul, K-Food, K-pop, K-drama, and K-fashion, but also in K-art, which is lesser known but is foundational to the more popularized cultural fusions and underpins many of the modern influences upon the soulful creativity of Korean people.
I sincerely hope to share my life’s work as it reflects not only Korean culture, mythology, worldviews and history, but it’s far reaching implications for global politics, consciousness, and our collective future. Thank you for your time and consideration.
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~ Kim Bong Jun
Four artist from India now showing their diverse work at the APCC Gallery
Please join us to celebrate these artists on March 2nd from 3:30-5:30 for an artist reception with food and drinks to accompany the art and meet the artists!
Asia Pacific Cultural Center is proud to showcase the extraordinary talents of four renowned artists from India – Aaliyah Gupta, Exta Gupta, Jayshree Krishnan, and Kamla Kakaria. Their captivating works of art are currently on display at the APCC gallery, inviting art enthusiasts to embark on a visual journey through the rich and diverse cultural tapestry of India.
A Glimpse into the Artists
Aaliyah Gupta
Statement
Natural disasters across the world have a global impact on multiple levels – environmental, economic, sociological. This series is about the idea of Dispersion (an act, state or instance of dispersing or of being dispersed), a study of the movement of particles, ash, smoke, clouds, oil, water, wind, sand.
Biography
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Born and raised in Kolkata, India, Aaliyah comes from a long line of spirited, rule-breaking women who pursued their passions despite the odds. Her most recent works are an exploration of cartography and memory. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, lived in New York and Copenhagen and is now rooted in Seattle and part of the Equinox Studios community.
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Aaliyah has been awarded artist residencies at Ucross Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Jentel Foundation and Willapa Bay AIR. Recent exhibitions include Brand51 at Brand Library & Arts Center, NEXT 2022 at PrintMatters, Houston; EKS-Rummet in Copenhagen; Site: Brooklyn Gallery; Bellevue Arts Museum; ARTS at King Street Station, Museum of History & Industry and Core Gallery in Seattle.
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In addition to her studio practice, she is actively involved in advocating for immigrant rights and was the founding executive director of Chaya, an organization serving South Asian survivors of domestic violence.
Ekta Gupta
ekta-gupta.pixels.com
Biography
Ekta Gupta is primarily a colored pencil artist, who enjoys capturing the beauty of nature in her artwork. She also loves the play of light and shadow on faces, and likes to utilize the simplicity of graphite to portray the complexity of wrinkles on paper. As the need for reference photos arose, she branched out into photography which has evolved into a full-blown passion. She believes art is a never-ending evolution of the creative mind and is constantly experimenting with different media including acrylics, charcoal, pastels, pen and ink, and chalk; various surfaces such as tiles, wood and burlap; genres ranging from realism to cubism; and diverse subjects including, but not limited to, flowers, fruits, people, pets, landscapes and waterscapes.
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A pharmacist by education, she has been involved in the health industry since 1987. A brief stint as an educator in a school for gifted children (1996-2009,) exposed her to a variety of experiences with children as well as adults. She first dared to pick up a pencil in 2009 at the instigation of a friend, and with the support and encouragement of her family, has been creating and evolving ever since. Mostly a self-taught artist, she has had the privilege of receiving art instruction from Duane Dudley (Illustrator – Scooby Doo movies) in Tulsa, OK, where she lived for 23 years, and from Margaret Davidson, Kathleen McKeehen and others at Gage Art Academy in Seattle, WA, after moving here in 2010.
She has been a member of the Colored Pencil Society of America as well as the American Society of Botanical Artists. She has shown her work at local galleries, juried shows, and various art fairs including the Miller Art Exhibit at the University of Washington, Bloedel Preserve, Snoqualmie River Arts Tour, Sammamish Arts Fair, Redmond Arts Fair, Railroad Days in Snoqualmie, Mount Si Festival, and Wine/Art walks in the Puget Sound area.
She has curated multiple shows for local galleries and facilitated numerous art markets for the Downtown Issaquah Association as their Art Liaison. She has also been an art instructor at Pratt Fine Arts Center, ArtEast Gallery, and various senior centers in the area. She has created commissioned works for various patrons here and abroad, including a Hollywood producer, and a corporate conglomerate. Her work has been featured in Courageous Creativity, Colored Pencil Magazine, as well as in Ann Kullberg’s Colored Pencil Magazine. She uses the proceeds from the sales of her artwork to make loans through KIVA.org, a group that provides microloans to the underprivileged populace around the globe and has made more than 1300 loans so far.