| Introduction |
Sawai Chinnawong |
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| Sawai Chinnawong was the Paul T. Lauby Artist in Residence at OMSC in 2003-2004. His love for art began when he was a child in Thailand when he saw some old men painting on a Buddhist temple wall. He says he would watch them for hours each day. Sawai's interest in art persisted into adulthood, and he studied art in a vocational school in Bangkok, Thailand. It was at this time that Sawai became a Christian. He says that a missionary was witnessing on the street one day, and soon after, he began to study the Bible every day after art class.
After completing his art studies, Sawai was compelled to attend the McGilvary Faculty of Theology at Payap University in Chiang Mai. He was deeply influenced by a series of lectures on the history of Christian Art given there in 1984 by artist and professor Nalini Jayasuriya. He began creating liturgical art while attending seminary, and designed the artwork for the chapel there. Today his art is appreciated in many places for its portrayal of Christian themes through a Thai graphic idiom that is inspired by Thai culture. Sawai's artwork is published by the Tao Fong Shan Christian Centre of Hong Kong and by the Asian Christian Art Association of Indonesia. Sawai Chinnawong's work has been exhibited in Asia, Sweden and the United States, and he was one of five artists chosen for the Summer of 2007 exhibition "The Christian Story: Five Asian Artists Today," held at the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA) in New York City. The catalog for that exhibition, which includes reproductions and critical essays, is available from the Mobia store. OMSC has also published an 80 page color monograph of Sawai's drawings and paintings, with an appreciative critical essay by Dr. William Yoder. The book is available through the OMSC bookstore. |