The Bangkok street art scene has taken me by surprise!
One of the first posts I did for this blog was about my surprising and happy discovery of the amazing street art I saw in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai. It took me by surprise because it wasn’t something I was aware of before my visit and because there were so many amazing pieces of work dotted around in the most unexpected places. If you havent read my awful attempt to become an art reviewer of said pieces, you can have a peek here
As much as I loved the street art of Chiang Mai, the title of best city in Thailand to find it in is, unsurprisingly, Bangkok.
Since I moved to Bangkok last year I have made it my mission to walk around as much of the city as possible, away from the usual tourist traps and shopping mall’s. It is while being on these walks that I’ve come across some amazing works of street art, mainly tucked away in little side streets!
In 2016 street artists from all over the world were invited to Bangkok to take part in the Bukruk Urban Arts Festival, the resulting pieces of work add another layer to what is already an amazing city.
ALEX FACE
I don’t know how to begin to explain the work above, maybe I shouldn’t try to and just let this and the following pieces speak for themselves. The above piece is by Alex Face, one of Bangkok’s most prolific street artists and his character of a kid in a bunny outfit, like the one above can be found dotted all over Thailand.
PHAI
The piece you can see above is down a small soi off Charoen Krung Road and it’s where you will also find many other pieces of street art such as this one by an artist called Phai…
I absolutely love the blue on this one and the small butterfly on the end of the shotgun has an air of Banksy about it.
BONUS TMC
The piece below is also one of my favourites…hang on, I’m going to be saying that about almost all, if not all of the pieces! I’m not a particularly articulate man when it comes to talking about art but there is something about street art that excites me unlike any other form of….’drawing’…see, I don’t even really know what to call it. Anyway, back to the art, this one, showing two tigers flying on hammerhead sharks with guns attached to their bodies is by Bonus TMC and its a beauty!
JIM (MAYBE)
This next one is kind of crazy and the lady vaguely reminds me of Sandra Bullock if you looked at her through a pint glass and the man/robot…well he just looks really ill to be honest but he was lucky to find a jumper that had a whole in it to match his torso! I couldn’t find the name of the artist for this one but I can see the name ‘Jim’ at the bottom right-hand corner…that narrows things down slightly but after a bit of research…I’m none the wiser as to who did this.
MUE BON
This next picture is one that I absolutely love…(I’m going to keep saying how much I love each one, dammit!), and it’s by an artist called Mue Bon, another Bangkok based street artist…I’m beginning to get the impression that Thai street artists may be really good!
As you can see it’s a small bird wearing human clothes while on a unicycle carrying some shopping…totally normal (and utterly brilliant!)
UNKNOWN
The following picture isn’t for the squiemish…its a mouse with, from what I can tell, NINE arms…just have a quick look and move on, it’s freaking me out!
ANOTHER UNKNOWN!
And the final piece in this post is another one that had no artists name that I could track down but they all look jolly happy to be there and that’s the main thing I am taking away from Bangkok street art, they all seem to have a sense of fun and are all filled with humour.
It seems a bit of a shame that so much brilliant art work is tucked down little side streets but I guess that is also part of the joy of such pieces, you find them almost by accident which means you feel that you are the only person that knows about it!
I’ve actually got plenty more photographs of some magnificent street art that is scattered across Thailand, so I shall be back again soon with more wonderfully colourful and amazing works soon…and I will try to find more names of the artists responsible..
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Those are whimsical and wonderful! I like bunny child with the strange eyes but I’m afraid I’m going to have to vote shopping chicken on flaming unicycle #1. I mean really, how often do you see that?
They’re my two favourites too and I only found out that they’re both painted by pretty famous street artists. I am going to be doing more posts like these as their are sooooo many amazing pieces here!
Looking forward to more chickens…
I’m actually blown away by these! Here in Aus, grafitti art is an absolute no-no, so most of it is just shit tags. It’s absolutely delightful to see a country/culture embrace street art to this extent. Utilising old brick walls and boring buildings to bring so much life. The Thai seem to really love colour and creativity!
It took me surprise also and not just because it’s so good but because there are sooo many pieces all over the place – I was saying to someone yesterday that I think all cities should just embrace this and make everywhere a sort of free art gallery!
Yes! A free art gallery! Never thought of it like that 🙂 I could wander for days around Bangkok!
Reblogged this on Our Travel Blog.
Thank you so much! I’m flattered 🙂
The great thing about street art is that I can say I’ve seen art on my travels without having to go to any art museums!! (My preferred travel ratio is as follows: 20:1:1. That is, I’ll see 20 castles for every one art museum and one cathedral.) I know… so uncultured.
You philistine 🙂
I need to go visit more of these. They make great photo backdrops. Have you been to the graffiti park by Ratchathewi station? It is really cool, and there is usually a takraw game happening. The neighborhood has several murals like these tucked away in dark corners.
I absolutely adore the street art here! I’m yet to go to the graffiti park but I’ve seen and heard a lot about it (just saw your photo of there on instagram), i’ll get myself along when I get chance!