100 Tonson Gallery is pleased to present portraits, an exhibition of new work by Richard Tsao, an artist from Thailand who lives in New York City. This will be Tsao's first solo exhibition in Thailand. Please join the artist for the opening reception of the exhibition which will take place on Thursday, May 20 from 6pm to 8pm. The exhibition will continue through Sunday, June 20. 

portraits, a photo-based work-on-paper project, was inspired by Tsao's trip to the National Palace Museum in Taipei. After studying the museum's immense collection of Chinese scroll paintings and the inscribed stone portraits of sages and gods, Tsao began experimenting with the photo-carborundum print process he employs for this project. These portraits bathed in veils of light and thin layers of color reveal images that seem to fade away into endless space. Luminous and ghost-like, these portraits tell a story that refers to historic Chinese paintings; they are marked with symbols and mythological dieties that drift and glow in unexpected colors.

In addition to the portraits, a collection of six abstract paintings for which Tsao is primarily known is also included in this exhibition. His colorful and spontaneous, but yet labor intensive, paintings on wood are inspired by extra-terrestrial landscape. Like his portraiture-based work, Tsao's paintings respond to subtle changes, such as the alterations in light-gleanings from the physical world as they reflect the artist's own internal processes.

Tsao was born and raised in Thailand and has been living in New York City ever since he left Thailand for America at the age of 17. It was in New York City that he chose to further his education and pursue his passion for painting and drawing. Tsao has exhibited widely in the United States and other parts of the world and has had numerous one person exhibitions in New York City. His work is also collected in  many private collections.

Two exhibition brochures with essays by New York based independent curator, Karen Lim (Singapore) and Gail Gregg, an artist and writer living in New York, will accompany the exhibition.