Word: bangkok
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...just come back from Cambodia with a bunch of dried toads," declares artist Jerry Swaffield, pretty much by way of introduction. Thirty minutes later, he's prowling a patch of Bangkok wasteland, cars howling past on the expressway above, a stylishly ruffled figure picking through rubbish, which?in the opinion of gawking slum dwellers nearby?has already been stripped clean of anything valuable. "Very rich pickings," muses Swaffield, before plunking himself down in a discarded armchair that is hemorrhaging orange and yellow foam. "Awesome," he pronounces...
...understand this passion for garbage?and dried toads?one must visit an eighth-floor apartment in Bangkok's Chinatown, where a process of transformation occurs that has made this 38-year-old Irishman one of Asia's most unusual and gifted artists. Here, in his bachelor-pad-cum-studio, Swaffield recycles carefully scavenged refuse from across the continent into rare works of art?pieces like Bali, an achingly exquisite collage finished in gold leaf, or Chinatown, an exuberant homage to Swaffield's favorite Hong Kong graffiti artist. Hanging in his tiny bathroom is Conjunctivitis, a maniacal disco ball formed from...
...Back in Bangkok, we crack open some beers, and the afternoon takes another turn for the weird. "I've got 600 ballpoint pens in a box under that desk," Swaffield says abruptly. "I still don't know what to do with them." Or with those wafer-thin frogs, peeled lovingly from roads around Siem Reap and now drying in his window box. He cranks up his Mac to display his latest work: bizarrely beautiful etchings of Angkorian temples where rioting fig-tree roots pulsate and twist in freakish homage to the stone gods. "Surreal, obviously," says Swaffield. Obviously...
...can’t move in those economy seats,” he says, compacting his frame to a rigid seating position to demonstrate his point, his eyes sparkling with a playfulness that defies his age. But he says he does look forward to flying home to Bangkok for the summer to celebrate his 70th birthday, which he says will be a small family affair...
...Here are three reputable Bangkok shops where antique opium paraphernalia can be purchased: Lampion and Cheng's Collection, both in the River City shopping complex next to the Royal Orchid Sheraton, and Kilin, at the Oriental Place on Charoen Krung Road...