Finding caricature-like art in other forms..The White Temple

During my recent trip to Thailand, I took in so many sights, sounds, and tastes that my senses were overwhelmed on occasion. One experience that really stood out to me as an artist, was a visit to Wat Rong Kuhn, or the White Temple in Chiang Rai. The work of ONE artist, Chalermchai Khositpipat, it was begun in 1996 and is still being worked on by him and his team...

It's his life work and offering to Buddha (Thailand is a primarily Buddhist country) and is a working temple as such. Here is a link to a good article about the Temple.

The interest for me started as soon as our tour pulled up. Buddhism's goal is achieving nirvana through wisdom,  and do that you must go through cycles of life with suffering and passion. These were presented  by imagery like this:

Traffic cones on the way in...

Demons and whisky bottles representing earthly evils...some grotesque caricatures of possibly real figures. The first one looks Hitler-like to me...

Then there was a bridge over a pit...filled with these writhing hands...

Once over the bridge, my Other Half and I continued in...

to see pop-culture themed murals with a much deeper message:

 ...that we need to learn from the evil man perpetuates upon himself and get past it. I found the artwork mind-boggling and its execution was exquisite. I also found it strangely familiar to see caricature-like versions of Michael Jackson and other real figures (like Keanu Reeves from the Matrix) used to make editorial comment in an artwork.

Time limitations kept me from being able to draw pre-penciled lines on the walls, as they were allowing some visitors to do...so I settled for just seeing as much as I could.

Yes, I am a rule-breaker. Couldn't help it in this instance!!!

We left the Temple wishing we'd had more time. Maybe someday I can go back. 

Nature called and even the rest rooms here were artistically embellished...