Feel Art Again: DuanPen

Over the course of the past six months, several readers have requested more modern artwork. I am happy today to be able to present a work by a very contemporary Thai artist, DuanPen.

1. DuanPen is only 9 years old, but she's already making a name for herself in the art world. Her abstract pointillist paintings sell for $500 to $750, on average. Her paintings were exhibited in the Kawamura Art Museum in Japan and in galleries in America and England.

2. Although DuanPen's parents are not artists, there are several other artists of varying ages living in her community. In 2005, when she was only 6 years old, DuanPen collaborated with seven of the other artists on a 6 meter by 2.4 meter landscape painting, "Cold Wind, Swirling Mist, Charming Lanna Number One," which sold for $39,000.

3. DuanPen has received training from two internationally known Russian artists, Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid, the artists behind the "People's Choice" project. For "People's Choice," project workers telephoned people to conduct surveys to determine countries' "most wanted" and "most unwanted" paintings. The American "most wanted" was a mid-sized autumnal landscape with people relaxing and animals frolicking, while the "most unwanted" was a small abstract painting of geometrical forms.

4. In Thai, DuanPen means "full moon month," which suits the mischievous personality of DuanPen, who's known for making funny faces.

5. DuanPen's works are not titled, just numbered. Shown above is CV0003.

'Feel Art Again' appears every Tuesday and Thursday.