Phuket Arts | The Phuket News

Cats gives us reason to paws...

Friday 3 January 2020 03:00 PM

When you look back at 2019 and think of what films made the biggest impact in cinema there were perhaps none quite talked about the way Cats was. When the trailer dropped for director Tom Hooper’s (Les Miserables, The King’s Speech) version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical it made the nightly news for all the wrong reasons. For some Hooper’s cats looked strange, not-quite-human not-quite-cat, but others (like myself) found themselves erring on the side caution wondering or not if this was going to turn out to be some kind of visual spectacular.

Marilyn Band – Black and White at Villa Royale Gallery

Phuket Life / Arts

Friday 3 January 2020 08:00 AM

With a successful show of new paintings on display at Mom Tri’s Gallery of Modern Art and Cuisine, the artist Marilyn Band has decided to present another, quite different exhibition of her more familiar, more classical work of original drawings, prints and limited editions at the Villa Royale Gallery at Kata Beach opening 3 January until 10 February 2020. She’s named the new exhibit, Black and White, to describe this substantial body of work. “I’ve had a long, happy career drawing the beautiful villages and people around the Indian Ocean while I have been sailing with my husband, Nick. We’ve explored the region from Zanzibar to the outer islands of Indonesia and I’ve drawn the cultures from many regions. Now I want to share these new and original images.” She also believes this art will show a vanishing world when the skies and the ocean were cleaner and people could more easily support themselves when living in remote villages. When Nick and Marilyn sailed to Phuket in 1980, the island was heavily populated with water buffaloes and covered with rice fields. There was no international tourism. The beaches were empty and it was difficult to make from one place to another. There was no road connecting Karon and Patong beaches and it was rumored that dangerous animals still inhabited the hills between Phuket Town and the western beaches. Marilyn’s early work from this period will be available for purchase. “I think it’s important for Phuket residents to understand that we need to protect the environment including the quality of air and water that has seriously been threatened by overdevelopment,” she says. “I hope my art from an earlier time will remind people of what if being lost.” In addition to a collection of black and white graphic images of Thai religious and cultural sites, Marilyn will offer a variety of colorful work from different periods of her career. Marilyn comes from four generations of English stained glass artists whose commissions even included work on Exeter Cathedral. They were kept busy repairing damage to churches and building damaged during World War II. As a child, she worked with her father at drawing and fabricating colored glass for their creations. She later studied graphic design at High Wycombe Technical College in Buckinghamshire, England and started her career as a graphic artist in a variety of advertising agencies in London. But on holiday to the Seychelles, the young artist met her future husband Nick who had sailed his yacht from Africa to the Seychelles. Together they have explored the wide Indian Ocean for 40 years where Marilyn has taken inspiration for her art. They built their studio, made from locally sourced materials, in Rawai in 1980 and Marilyn has been painting and drawing and building collage ever since. She will be in residence at the Villa Royale Gallery most days from lunchtime til 7pm. For more information, contact Villa Royale at 076 333 568 or info@villaroyalephuket.com

The Fin Arts: Meet the social enterprise painting a brighter future for sharks

Phuket Life / Arts

Sunday 8 December 2019 10:00 AM

For over 400 million years, sharks have flourished in the deep, surviving five mass extinctions, evolving to become the perfect predator and keeping marine ecosystems in check at the top of the food chain.

Comedy of errors: The fun and foibles of theatre

Phuket Life / Arts

Sunday 1 December 2019 03:00 PM

I’ve always liked this quote: “Theatre is serious fun.” I think it really captures the soul of why I love theatre so much. It takes serious, hard work to put on any kind of theatrical show, no matter how simple it is, but oh what fun we have!

Sail alongside Marilyn Band in her latest exhibition

Phuket Life / Arts

Saturday 23 November 2019 10:00 AM

Marilyn Band has been drawing and painting idyllic scenes around Phuket since she sailed to the island in 1980. She is undoubtedly the most celebrated local artist, with gallery shows at such distinctive venues as The Boathouse at Kata Beach. Her graphic designs have even animated the King’s Cup Regatta.

HeadStart set to dazzle with Fame, the Musical, their most ambitious show yet

Phuket Life / Arts

Monday 18 November 2019 10:00 AM

Over the past five years, HeadStart International School has steadily built a reputation for putting on a real show, transforming their sports hall into everything from an enchanted forest in Into the Woods, to a bustling Old Baghdad in Ali Baba and the Bongo Bandits, to a circus big top in The Greatest Show.

Legends of Change: Phuket author shares stories of women leading the vegan revolution

Phuket Life / Arts

Saturday 9 November 2019 10:00 AM

“Vegan” has become a loaded term. Utter the word in the 1940s, when it was coined by The Vegan Society, and you’d likely be met with blank stares. Drop the v-bomb in conversation today, however, and you seem to awaken the inner caveman in anyone within a mile radius.

Piercing the past: Through the eye of a needle with embroidery artist Stephanie Soper

Phuket Life / Arts

Monday 4 November 2019 10:00 AM

Stephanie Soper is like a migratory bird, flying to Phuket from December to March to get away from the awfully cold English winters and to absorb the balmy Southeast Asian sunshine. She has many hobbies, but ecclesiastical embroidery is her forte.

Everyone’s an actor: The inner thespian as told by Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man

Phuket Life / Arts

Monday 28 October 2019 02:00 PM

English speakers worldwide have heard the expression “All the world’s a stage”, whether they know it’s from William Shakespeare or not, whether or not they know it’s from As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII.

Mauy the graffiti artist: spraying a wall near you

Phuket Life / Arts

Saturday 12 October 2019 10:00 AM

Phuket’s new family entertainment venue Blue Tree is taking shape in Cherng Talay, and there’s no doubt that it’s a colourful addition to the island.

Musical Magic: Inside the mind of Phuket pianist Ivan Sharapov

Phuket Life / Arts

Sunday 6 October 2019 10:00 AM

Beethoven once said, “Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and all philosophy.” Bach’s view was that “Music is the harmony of God.” And all I have to say with my clumsy words is that music carries a magical power.

Artists announce exhibition at Mom Tri’s Wok Gallery Kitchen

Phuket Life / Arts

Friday 4 October 2019 11:00 AM

We are all creative creatures, it’s in our DNA. We want to survive, we got to come up with ideas and some combinations of peoples can get a bit out of control, tend to cause chaos... that’s a good thing, it takes us into the abyss (I have yet to go there but it sounds cool).

Setting the scene for the next season of theatre in Phuket

Phuket Life / Arts

Monday 30 September 2019 02:00 PM

They say in spring a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love. Well, in fall, or more precisely, September (since we don’t have fall here), a theatrical person’s fancy turns to thoughts of the new season, with new horizons, new goals, new plays, new styles, new things to try.

Around the world with Children’s Theatre and Story Theatre

Phuket Life / Arts

Monday 2 September 2019 10:00 AM

There are so many forms of live theatre and sub-genres of those forms that space would fail me to even just list them all here, much less add a description of each, so this month I want to talk about two closely related forms that I have been delving into extensively this past year in Phuket and on my travels to Dubai, namely Children’s Theatre and Story Theatre.

The flying thespian continues his travels

Phuket Life / Arts

Monday 29 July 2019 10:00 AM

After finding a thriving theatrical community in Ashland, Oregon, I was on my way to Houston – that’s right, Houston, Texas – a place probably considered by most to be a cultural wasteland, but they’d be very wrong.

The flying thespian reports from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Phuket Life / Arts

Saturday 29 June 2019 03:00 PM

If you recall, in my maiden article I spoke of one of my greatest theatrical inspirations: the Oregon Shakespeare Festival under the leadership of Angus Bowmer. Well, guess what? I’ve just spent two wonderful days there, watching a number of plays. In short, The Play’s the Thing! has gone international!

Artist transforms flotsam and jetsam from Phuket beaches into treasure

Phuket Life / Arts

Sunday 23 June 2019 10:00 AM

The joy of art, for me, lies in an artist’s ability to capture something culturally familiar, something known, and present it in a new and unusual way. There is endless perception-challenging fascination in discovering what they could see that I could not.

Officials praise Phokeethra Gallery art expo in Phuket Town

Phuket Life / Arts

Friday 21 June 2019 05:24 PM

PHUKET: Phuket officials today lauded the official opening of the second installment of the “Phokeethra Gallery” art exhibition, now on show at the Novotel Phuket Phokeethra Hotel in Phuket Town for being a space to show Phuket’s artists’ works to tourists and Phuket residents to appreciate them.

Monty Python meets Alfred Hitchcock: Don’t miss The 39 Steps at Underwood Art Factory on June 1 and 2

Phuket Life / Arts

Saturday 25 May 2019 10:00 AM

Welcome back to The Play’s the Thing! I hope you are enjoying reading these as much as I am enjoying writing them.

Theatrical collaboration an example for our polarised world

Phuket Life / Arts

Saturday 27 April 2019 02:00 PM

“There is probably no more varied a motley crew than those who people a theatre production. We could hardly be less similar except for our love of this art, so we learn to get past all those differences and down to what binds us.” – Robert Barton from Acting Onstage and Off.

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