Miss Well-Come, 2014, our first project. We are interested in all Thai-based objects, which has its own story, contents and elements. The first object, which we focused on, is "Nang-Kwak",
Nang Kwak is represented as a beautiful woman wearing a red dress (not always, but more often than other colors) fashioned in the Thai. She also wears a golden crown on her head and is in the sitting or kneeling position. Her right hand is raised in the Thai way of beckoning a customer, with the palm of the hand pointing downwards. Her left hand is resting on her side or holds a bag full of gold on her lap.
The present iconographic figure of Nang Kwak evolved from Mae Po Sop, the Siamese rice goddess, in recent times. The only difference is that she is not wearing the harvested rice sheaf on her right shoulder. The iconography of these goddesses is based in the Hindu goddess Sri Lakshmi, but their true origins are local and more ancient.
The position of her hand in present-day iconography is quite likely borrowed from the Japanese Maneki Neko beckoning cat.
We brought Nang-Kwak to our first collection, renamed it as Miss-Well Come.
Miss Well Come, 2014 was redesigned to the minimal form by re-interpretation and change the contexts to make it become contemporary object. And this project, we would like to keep all the making process of Nang-Kwak as same as the original so, we cooperated with Thai-based sculpture artist, Mr. Somsak Tangphon, to be our collaborating maker to create a master piece of Miss Well-Come, 2014.