Meeting Tawatchai Somkong was as much a coincidence as any other moment that life quietly aligns for us. It was brief at first, almost incidental, but like a seed, it evolved with time. When I finally reached Thailand, that early encounter transformed into something deeper, more profound. Visiting him in his studio and at the art center he built in the heart of Bangkok opened an entirely new chapter of understanding. Within its walls, Tawatchai's vision unfolds not just through his paintings but through the atmosphere he creates around them. The first time I entered what he calls his "Black Room," I felt a sudden transport, as though I had been carried across time and geography to Santiniketan. There, in the dark serenity of that space, I sensed the presence of Mani da, as K. G. Subramanyan was affectionately known. Even the lingering footsteps of Rabindranath Tagore wandering through the groves of Santiniketan in the early dawns of another century. The walls of Tawatchai's Black Room seem to breathe with the same contemplative energy as his visual narrative becomes a meditation on time, memory, and the evolution of artistic thought. It is less a room and more an experience of continuity, a bridge between Bengal's humanist legacy and Bangkok's modern pulse. Each painting in this exhibition, too, begins with this same spirit of continuity. None starts on a blank canvas. Instead, he begins with an existing artwork, a forgotten oil painting, a portrait or landscape once created by anonymous hands. These works, once mere commodities painted on commission, have long lost their authorship and their audience. In Tawatchai's hands, however, they were rediscovered and reborn. He describes the process as a kind of rescue mission, retrieving the paintings from the dust-laden corners of old shops and giving them a new purpose in the contemporary world. His selection process is instinctive yet deeply reflective. Tawatchai does not choose arbitrarily. Each work he finds, seems to call out to him for its story, its technique, or its emotional resonance. Some pieces captivate him through their mastery of composition, others through their quiet, forgotten beauty. Yet all share a common quality: the potential for immortality. In his eyes, these paintings are not finished; they are waiting for his conversation and intervention. He sees in them a dormant energy, a history paused mid-breath, ready to awaken through his contemporary imagination. Once he begins painting over them, Tawatchai treats the originals with both reverence and curiosity. His brush does not seek to erase but to engage. Each stroke becomes a line of dialogue between the past and the present, between one artist's hand and another's mind. His modern additions, at times playful, at times subversive, create a field where multiple temporalities coexist. Classical portraits might find themselves disrupted by geometric forms, abstract symbols, or a digital icon. In serene pastoral scenes, he might add a solitary cloud or a series of dots and dashes mark that speak not of intrusion but of meditation. These gestures reflect themes of change and uncertainty, existence and extinction, awakening and awareness. Through this visual dialogue, Tawatchai constructs a temporal layering, a palimpsest of centuries. The experience of viewing his paintings is both unsettling and mesmerising. One shifts constantly between familiarity and strangeness, between recognition and reimagining. The old and the new do not cancel each other out; they sustain each other in a delicate tension. Tawatchai reminds us that meaning in art is never static; it is rewritten endlessly through each generation's sensibility. What was once sacred may now become ironic, and what once seemed decorative may now hold philosophical weight. His practice stands as a testament to a rare balance; it is both respectful and rebellious. Tawatchai acknowledges the weight of history, yet he refuses to be bound by it. His layered canvases suggest that art is not an artefact but a living conversation, a continuum that transcends time, authorship, and tradition. By transforming forgotten works into new visions, Tawatchai Somkong asserts that creativity does not end with completion. It is perpetual, flowing across generations, awaiting the next artist who dares to listen, intervene, and imagine anew. - Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya