THE SPIRIT OF THE CITY
They say familiarity breeds contempt. For UK artist Dave Barratt, his
two major domiciles in life, the East End of London and New York, both
ultimately bred boredom.
Recently, feeling increasingly listless in a post-9/11 NY (which, incidentally, he witnessed from his own apartment only a few clicks from the carnage), the multi-media, multi-tasking G4 jockey, whose creative endeavors have included producing, re-mixing and songwriting for the likes of David Bowie and Robert Plant and day jobs writing licks for movies such as Pretty Woman and Sister Act, packed his Apple bag and swapped Sex in the City for Thai soap operas. Now he’s dizzy photographing the city.
Bangkok can lull on many levels: It can be a metropolitan tango or it can be a pulsating hotbed of spirituality. Even mere mortals on the middle path, have to admit the Big Mango has a unique rhythm. For Barratt, who arrived just under a year ago, it has given his tired Greco-Roman mindset a breath of fresh, still sweet Eastern air.
“I have been captivated by the dance that is going on between the past and the present. One the one hand there’s this deep spiritual belief and a general acceptance but on the other there is the desire for more, like a new cell phone or a new car,” he said.
“I’ve also been reading about Buddhism and the concept of Hungry Ghosts appeals to me,” he added. Hungry Ghost or (IN THAI) are spirits that in a former human form were so greedy they are now forced to walk the earth with tiny mouths and huge empty stomachs.
One would imagine seeing the twin towers topple with your own eyes would burn an indelible image on the mind. Would it be a Freudian stab in the dark to suggest that the artist’s deconstruction of the contemporary Bangkok skyline, morphing many of city’s architectural monoliths into insatiable spirits, is a delayed reaction to the tragedy?
But why did he choose Bangkok? “Bangkok kind of chose me,” he explained. “I realise I am a guest here but I couldn’t have done this kind of work in New York or London. Arriving in Bangkok gave me a fresh perspective. I was able to look at the city and its culture with fresh eyes,” Barratt explained.
And does he believe in ghosts? “I’m a firm believer that things that have happened in the past have an impact with what happens today. People from our past have a valid presence in our present. I often find myself talking to my own son in my father’s or even my mother’s voice,” he said.
