Jiab Prachakul

Jiab Prachakul (b. 1979, Nakhon Phanom, Thailand) is a figurative painter who lives and works in Vannes, Brittany, France. Prachakul explores issues of identity and the human experience in her works, which depict scenes of figures in contemporary urban settings - bars, restaurants, hotels and artists' studios. Her work focuses on representations of the Asian diaspora, filling in an absence in the Western canon of visual depictions of Asian peoples. Within each scene, a narrative unfolds: elements of personality are revealed, while Prachakul's attention to detail in clothing adds to a sense of hyperrealism and the specificity of the moment captured.

Prachakul is a self-taught artist who studied film at Thammasat University in Bangkok before living in London and Berlin. She began painting in London, after seeing a 2006 David Hockney exhibition of paintings and deciding to teach herself how to paint the human form. In 2020, Prachakul won the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Her first solo exhibition, 14 Years at Friends Indeed Gallery, San Francisco (2021), paid homage to the fourteen years spent working as a portrait painter in near-obscurity.