“This is the last president of the UNITED States of America. Yellow signifies a warning about the next four years…an end of democracy. The question now is: who will be our next president of a united states?” -Chantala Kommanivanh The Last President of the United States, 2017 40″x40″ Acrylic, oil, and spray paint on canvas #obamafarewell More on Chantala at: https://chantalism-art.com/.
Sabai: living easy, comfortable, simple. This is the feel, theme and name of Chantala Kommanivanh’s art show, coming to Chicago’s eclectic Pilsen neighborhood this Friday, June 12th. “Sabai Sabai” features Chantala’s interpretive pieces of the Lao American refugee experience, commemorating 40 years since post-1975 war era. Chantala is no stranger to LLOTP. He joined forces with us for The Lao Diaspora Project and showcased his work at our “Refuge of the InvisibLao” exhibit earlier this year in Minneapolis. We briefly chatted about what this upcoming collection means to him and his craft. On his contribution to Lao American art. I made the work to document a piece of Lao history that many of us lived through, so the work is very personal. I didn’t make paintings of three-headed elephants, That Luang, women bathing in the river, or the march of monks in morning rituals. Sure, these are “cute” subjects, but that’s not what I’m selling. This work is about the Lao for the Lao, Lao people should give a fuck about. On his reflections of Lao America. Everything is …
