My painting is inspired by an installation by Montien Boonma titled ‘The Pleasure of Being, Crying, Dying, and Eating’. Boonma is a well known Thai sculptor. He has traveled all across South - East Asia creating 3D artworks with miraculous backstories. I was captured by the sheer complexity and peculiarity this piece contained. There is a clear sense of time passing and tidiness about this space. It consists of 999 stacked porcelain bowls, with intricate paintings of human finger bones. Surrounding this structure are 4 red tables, each laid with silver painted finger bones. The chaos of it all is contrasted with the simple colour palette used, consisting of different shades of red from bright to deep, and shining pure white. But this piece has a pure meaning behind it and a sad backstory. Boonma and his wife, Chancham, were both buddhists and lived apart for 10 years on the advice of a trusted Buddhist monk. It was during this time that Chancham developed breast cancer. She subsequently died from the illness in 1994 and the artist created this piece in honour of her. It shows the sadness of Boonma having to eat just by himself and his young son, Choompong. It also shows the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. He later developed a brain tumor and sadly died in 2000. As you can see in my work, I have used 2 numbers 12 and 14. The number 12 in Buddhism symbolises the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, exactly like what Boonma meant in his 3D artwork. The number 14 caught my eye because I was super interested in the finger bones placed on the table. I did some research and found out that each human has 14 finger bones in each hand. I have attempted to make an abstract response, influenced by the complexity and colour scale of this piece. I have used different tones, to represent the 3D of this piece, circles to represent the hundreds of bowls, and I have drawn 2 hands of finger bones on the edges, to portray the fact that someone might be holding the piece.