The Bangkok Series

Named after a woman I talked with one night in the back streets of Bangkok. The figure is painted from a stock reference; the face stays hidden behind her hands.

We talked for a while, like strangers do, then went our separate ways. The painting isn't a claim on her story, just a way of holding onto the meeting.

Painted from a stock reference by AdorkaStock (DeviantArt), used under the AdorkaStock license.

Phak (พัก) is Thai for a break. A woman rests on a pale block with her back turned, one hand raised.

The first version had blood running from her wrist. By the final, all that's left is the pause and the scars it doesn't hide.

Painted from a stock reference by Drawing Reference (AUG STU) (“Female 10” set, ArtStation Marketplace), commercial license.

About loneliness. A sex worker sits at a mirror, but the reflection is mine.

The woman at the mirror is a real person — a sex worker, not an imagined figure. She looks into the glass and finds me looking back: two kinds of loneliness meeting in one reflection.

About Thai sex workers living with HIV. They go back to Isaan to die, leaving the Pattaya bars for the villages they came from, to be cared for at home.

Diagnosis is often a one-way ticket back to the village. The painting stays with that journey rather than illustrating it.

Painted from a stock reference by Marcus Ranum (mjranum-stock on DeviantArt), used under his stock rules.