Anay Singh

The installation that I was inspired by is called "The Pleasure of Being, Crying, Dying and Eating" by Montien Boonma. It explores the Buddhist belief that life follows the stages of pleasure (eating) and suffering (crying) from birth (being) to death (dying), and thein continues the same cycle in rebirth. The painting was made during a very tough time for the artist as prior to finishing, his wife had died, giving him inspiration to remake the cycle of life. The original painting are bowls stacked upside down and normally in a ring formation. Each bowl has a picture of a jawbone on it to symbolize the pleasure of eating. I have reinvented the installation as a painting.

My painting is a top view picture of a bowl of ramen, symbolizing the pleasure of eating, surrounded with a circular splash of red, representing blood and death. The bowl is also circled by many short dashes of red, which show the pleasure of being and rebirth, portraying life as an infinite loop. I chose a mellow pink background, showing that even though death is scary, it brings you to a new life. My background also contains several white and red dots, the white ones illustrating rebirth and the red ones illustrating death.

The number I chose was 9, as It was the age I had first enjoyed the pleasure of eating ramen. I chose a bright yellow for the background of the bowl, which shows the bright sun which is seen at every rebirth and green and red for the curries, green representing the famous Thai green curry and an orangey red for Thai red curry. I used texture paste for the rim of the bowl and hanging paper string to bring the cycle of life into 3D.