A bright pink girl with frail limbs is shocked at the weight of a dumbbell sinking into her chest. Two kids sit in the darkening dusk, regretting the harm they caused to an ancient tree. A figure kneels in her pastel vomit as doctor’s prescriptions float around her blank face. These are the tortured characters of Bobby Leash, a pop surrealist oil painter who takes his problems out on canvas rather than on others.
Leash, whose real name is Pruch Sintunava, balances a cartoonish, colorful style with bleak and troubled subject matter. It’s full of pain and suffering but presented quite cheerfully. The style is just one he grew up with and perfected, one he’s comfortable working with but finds difficult to communicate through. Although unintended, the result makes it easier for a viewer to spend significant time with such dark thoughts. Like bubble gum-flavored medicine; it’s easier to take that way.
We inflict harm on ourselves and the world does the same right back. We then lash out in a never-ending cycle. We’re our own worst enemies in a rusty-edged world. Leash’s characters reflect this, lying prone with gaping holes caused by their own doing and picking up weapons to defend themselves from predators. Often they cause harm to the innocent as they wildly attack real and perceived threats. But we’re only witness to the aftermath, never the action. The figures are very often nude, exposing their vulnerability and defenselessness. But it’s also confessional, stripped of anything unnecessary that may cloak the artist’s meaning.
They’re also usually quite young. Kids are the most emotional and at risk. It makes sense that Leash would paint them. It’s also a yearning for the resiliency and innocence of those early days when we were free from ever-growing layers of regret and injuries. It’s a yearning for the rose-tinted days of wonder and awe.
Leash’s work is usually accompanied by English-language poetry. Many times he begins a piece by writing down vague words and building a composition out of them, leading to a full painting. Other times he writes the poetry later, stretching meaning from hazy aesthetics created by brush strokes. With the latter, it might take him months to figure out what he was saying with a painting and to put that into words.
Art is a therapy for Leash, a way to keep him sane. We can barely take care of our own physical health; what hope is there for our mental health, let alone the well-being of others, he asks? He even paints to make others feel bad, to feel like he does. Not out of spite, just to release the well of pain inside his bones and skin and spread the weight. He says the hatred of the world rubs off on him and he internalizes it, turning that hate on himself. With a paintbrush, he can flip that despair into artwork; draw it out of himself and onto canvas instead. It’s a privilege to have an outlet for expression like art, and he fully recognizes that. What do other people do? he wonders.
