Born 1992, Bangkok, Thailand

‘One thread alone is fragile’, says Thidarat Chantachua, ‘but many threads together are stronger’. She is referring, literally, to her technique of ‘drawing’ complex architectural geometries with needle and thread, but she is also speaking metaphorically. Thidarat Chantachua studied painting, sculpture and graphic arts at Silpakorn University, but now, eschewing more conventional art materials, she adapts embroidery techniques she learned as a child from her mother to create immersive textile works. Escher-like perspectival illusions of space and depth, and clever contrasts of lighter and darker web-like threads, draw the viewer into alluringly beautiful, ambiguous spaces.

At the heart of Chantachua’s practice is her Islamic faith and its spiritual and artistic traditions. She conveys this theme in a highly contemporary way, integrating the decorative motifs of Islamic art with an abstract language influenced by western modernism – which itself was often informed by non-western religious and spiritual traditions. Chantachua’s knowledge of traditions of Thai and Islamic painting and architecture is evident in the intricate geometry and repeated patterning in each work. Her starting point is often with the rectangles and triangles found in the sacred geometry that is the foundation of Islamic art and architecture. Using Photoshop, she creates dizzying geometric tessellations overlaid onto the forms of interior and exterior spaces, before transferring the designs onto fabric.

Thidarat Chantachua believes that we must find it in our hearts to act together for the common good. As a Muslim living in Bangkok, in a predominantly Buddhist culture, she is acutely aware of the need for people to overcome cultural and religious differences and find connection. For Chantachua, her thread becomes a symbolic means of emphasising the bonds that unify people.