Nontawat Numbenchapol

Mr. Shadow 1

The series of prints titled Mr. Shadow by Nontawat Numbenchapol engages with the history of and current state of militarization in Thailand. Each print features an invisible person, their silhouette only outlined by the military fatigues that they wear. The faceless figure in each work is pictured either in solitude or interacting with other camouflage-swathed ghosts. Ironically, the camouflage attire of each figure is the only part of them that is not erased by the artist. Photographed on a mountain range at the border between Shan State in Myanmar and Northern Thailand, the Mr. Shadow series epitomizes the haunting presence and effects of a militarized modernity and nation-state building across the region.

In this iteration of the photo series groups of bodiless figures rest casually in the grass, seemingly in a state of waiting. In the foreground, four figures lounge in the field, their garments nonchalantly intertwined. The image is homoerotic, inherent to the homo-sociality of the army, and to the way the artist’s gaze captures desire. The pastoral scene also emphasizes the landscape—a geography contested and dominated by violence, dispossession, displacement, and migration. Though the compositions and imagery may differ across the images, what ties this series together is a temporal tension; there is a discernible sense of latent expectancy or apprehension that permeates the figures in waiting.