Pinaree Sanpitak

Pinaree Sanpitak (born 1961) is a Thai conceptual and contemporary artist. Her work addresses motherhood, womanhood, and self by using the shape of breast to provoke the symbol of feminism and femininity. She attended the University of Tsukuba in Ibaraki, Japan, and Northern Territory University in Darwin, Australia. In 2007, Sanpitak received the Silpathorn Award for Visual Arts from the Thai Ministry of Culture.

Life and career

Pinaree Sanpitak was born in 1961, in Bangkok Thailand. Her work was included in the 2025 exhibition Dis/orient: Contemporary Art of the Asian Diaspora at the Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC.

Influences and inspirations Pinaree Sanpitak is one of the most compelling and respected Thai artists of her generation. Her primary inspiration is the female body, distilled to it is the most basic form of the human breast. While nursing her son she became conscious of how the breast upheld itself, she has looked beyond the mother and child connection to the breast as a metaphor for womanhood and self. consists of 18 hammocks, crafted from paa-lai, multicolored cotton textile that are also used for clothing, sheets, and items of ordinary life. The 18 hammocks are hung around 10th century sculpture of the Hindu god "Vishnu", which was created during the Khmer Empire. Vishnu represents the protector; meaning there would be no need to move it as it would protect the art work. a silk, synthetic fiber, battery, motor, propeller, sound device, dimensions variable. This was Installed at the Austin's AMOA- Arthouse, which explored the liminal space between genders while navigating between the silks of Thailand and the sands of Texas. This exhibition consists of 100 soft sculptures, and Sanpitak poetically muddles bodily forms and their associative functions. It is an arrangement of roundish cushioned objects, placed directly on the gallery floor. The objects present interactivity with the audience. They produce a soft audio effect that is mechanically derived of natural sound. "The shapes are more morphed, both breasts and balls". The effects are not only a blurring of genders, but also a blending of the human and the inanimate. Temporary Insanity recalls Buddhist practices by inviting viewers to stoop on the group, which invokes the conventional gesture of paying respect and offering prayer. The warm colour and dyed silk objects evoke both flesh and the countryside, the world recalls the palette of Buddhist pagoda frescoes and ceremonial objects. organza, synthetic fibers, 55 pieces. This artwork was presented in Singapore Art Museum collection. The word "Nom" in the title translates as breast milk, which emphasizes each term's nurturing function. The work's title and form both evoke earliest instinct of nestling into the soft, fleshiness of the mother's chest in search of warmth and sustenance. noon-nom invites the visitor to not only touch the artwork, but also be touched, getting up close and personal with a familiar form that is nurturing, sensual, and sacred: the human female breast. These soft sculptures covered in organza are part of Sanpitak's ongoing and extensive body of works across different media and genre incorporating the human corpus as a vessel and mound. She questions the attitudes toward the female breast in significance as a natural form that symbolizes nourishment and comfort as well as portraying sensuous and spiritual feminine body. This artwork creates a physical and metaphorical space where participants can freely interact with tactile sculpture. noon-nom illustrates the importance of touching and feeling as a means of reconnecting human relationships. made with saa fiber & ratan, Womanly Echo (1998), The Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA, USA, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore,

Reception Curator Jasmin Stephen says that Pinaree has engaged with notions of the self, feminism, and female experience for many years. Her approach to these issues is an expansive one, which has been shaped by her experience of showing all over the world. Stephen goes on and says "I think her works of resisting any dominating or ridged accounts of feminism while being of interest to scholars and audiences engaged in feminism throughout the world. An unknown curated stated regarding Sanpitak’s Breast Stupa Cookery Project states "this process of exchange is like a rebirth; it symbolically manifests the life cycle" as the breast stupa creates are never the same or repeated.

Femininity and feminism Femininity on a Plate (Breast Stupa Cookery – 2005) An adverse effect of Pinaree Sanpitak's signature work provokes hallucinating objects like boobs, whether fried eggs, bowls, lampshades etc. Sanpitak expresses her thoughts and experiences through breasts taking into culinary art. "It’s my lifetime project," says the artist, who has collaborated with cooks and chefs from many countries to express the symbol of femininity on the plate. Sanpitak worked with professional and amateur chefs to create meals using specially designed breast stupa- shaped cooking molds made in glass aluminum and glazed stoneware. The artist and her collaborator-chefs have hosted many of these events, presenting their five-course nourishing nipple- meals to audiences in Thailand, Japan, China, Spain, France, and the United States. "The inspiration came when I gave birth to my son. I used the breast shape, which is a beautiful form, to represent myself and also to symbolize not only motherhood but also femininity, and womanhood. There is a deeper meaning because when you look at mothers breast- feeding their child, it’s about both giving and receiving". The recipes and cooking process are documented and compiled as videos and cookbooks. In August 2005, the first official Breast Stupa Cookery event took place at the Jim Thompson House, which involved four chefs in preparing a buffet banquet for 200 guests. Over four years, Breast Stupa Cookery events has been organized over the world. The Breast Stupa culinary experience changes people's perceptions and make them look beyond what they see on the plate.