Tuck Muntarbhorn

“I seek to capture the essence of spirit in matter…through precise acts of creation, incision and illumination, I explore what it means to transform light into a vessel of the infinite.” – Tuck Muntarbhorn

For a decade, Tuck Muntarbhorn’s oeuvre seamlessly intertwines the legacies of Abstract Expressionism with their own lineage of pioneering surgeons and fashion designers. Echoing the precision of their forebears – most notably a grandfather who was Thailand’s first open-heart surgeon and a father who innovatively applied endoscopic techniques to brain surgery – Muntarbhorn “performs surgery” on their photographs in their series “Surgical Landscapes”, using inherited surgical tools to cut or apply oil paint and 24-carat gold leaf. Their cadmium red incisions echo the spiritual intensity of Barnett Newman’s zips, while blue lapis lazuli paint nods to the healing aura of Piero della Francesca’s ‘Madonna del Parto’ (c. 1457), inviting the viewer into a transcendent space where wounds are both opened and healed. Muntarbhorn deepens this exploration by cutting into the photograph with a surgeon’s scalpel, in homage to Fontana’s spatial slashes. Behind the incision is a piece of Thai silk from their mother’s fashion atelier, forging a personal ink to both a medical and fashion lineage.

Their work remains a compelling dialogue between the traditions of art and medicine, pushing the boundaries of how we experience healing, transformation, and the unseen realms of “infinite consciousness”.