Meet Saun Santipreecha | Interdisciplinary artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Saun Santipreecha and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Saun, how does your business help the community?
I think Art has the potential to encourage questioning, whether in and of oneself or the systems and social one is in. It allows one access to a point of view of another, to collect a firmament of stars into oneself. In this way, Art is scalable and that is very important to me, to be able to engage on and through multiple strata. Questioning leads to ‘engaged’ change, and again, here, I think change needs to occur on multiple strata. As bodies in time, we are already always in the process of change. The question is how engaged are we in that process, how lucid our thinking. Or, to frame it another way, we are all embedded in stratum of illusions yet Art has the capacity to ‘heighten these illusions to the point of clarity’ (a slight re-phrasing of Adorno).

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My work is multidisciplinary and entwines research, writing and working with materials both visual and aural. I often begin with literature and read widely through sociology, philosophy, psychoanalysis and other theoretical disciplines. I would describe my work as weaving and through the process, the project begins to gain its own barycenter around which these subjects and research orbit, slowly becoming interwoven, constantly in the state of becoming. My journey has been one of constant movement, between mediums and disciplines, places and ideas, propelled less by a north star as more by the constant revolt within a tumultuous storm at sea. Like most journeys, it hasn’t been an easy journey though I’ve been very lucky and thankful to have had the support I have had, continuing to push forward, or rather in large eccentric circles. Perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learnt would be to be careful of the concretization of the stable and legible, particularly in ideas, and the necessity to be in constant motion.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Naturally, the places I would start with would be art galleries and museums including Reisig and Taylor Contemporary of course, Tanya Bonakdar, Blum, the Hammer Museum, LACMA, The Broad, the Norton Simon Museum. Food-wise, I’d take them to Republique and BCD Tofu House for late-night soon tofu soup. Film-wise I love the Laemmle Glendale. I always can’t resist bookstores. Skylight Books in Los Feliz is a frequent one for me. I particularly love their international book section at the back next to a lot of the Zone Books publications which are consistently great. Nature-wise, I’d take them up into Angeles Crest mountains and to Malibu.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Oh there are so many whose support, friendship, guidance and encouragement have helped shape my journey to where I am now: my friends and fellow artists (in no particular order), Luc Trahand, Sinclair Vicisitud, objet A.D., Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai, art historian Robyn Tisman and biologist Manop Buranapramest, to name a few, whose conversation has been invaluable to my thinking and development; Reisig and Taylor Contemporary, for opening up one of the most important doors for me and for all their support and guidance—I will remain forever grateful; authors and artists like (again, in no particular order): Beckett, Calvino, Woolf, Kafka, Camus, Schoenberg, Berg, Bergman (Ingmar), Haneke, Pasolini, Von Trier, Duchamp, Cage, Beuys, Kiefer, Kristeva…to name a few whose works have greatly influenced and shaped me; and of course my mother, whose resilience, strength and support has been a beacon for me.

Website: www.santipreecha.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/santipreechasaun/

Image Credits
Saun at RSTLC: Photo courtesy of Reisig and Taylor Contemporary “Excavation, of the Vagaries of the Exposed”: Photo courtesy of Reisig and Taylor Contemporary “Facades”: Photo courtesy of Reisig and Taylor Contemporary “Let the Wind Speak…”: Photo courtesy of Reisig and Taylor Contemporary “Preserved”: Photo courtesy of artist “Three Elegies”: Photo courtesy of Reisig and Taylor Contemporary “Untitled”: Photo courtesy of artist