One of the most gifted sculptors in Thailand, Montien Boonma has consistently searched for alternatives to break out of the strict confines of traditional art. Inspired by Arte Povera artists as well as British sculptors like Tony Cragg and Bill Woodrow, he successfully combines the use of junk and perishable materials in his assemblages. He has become known for his hybrids of mixed media including ash, soil, buffalo hide, gold, terracotta, and cement. However, his oeuvre stands apart from Western artists as his thematic subjects directly concern tensions and transformation of rural and urban, primitive and modern, irrational and reasoned, Third World and First World. While his work is based on a search for alternative means of expression in sculpture, it still maintains inspiration from indigenous roots and traditional values. Religious faith has always been a major concern among Thai people, especially now in a rapidly changing society. It was once taken for granted that Buddhism was widely accepted in Thai families; now, owing to modernisation, its potency is rapidly fading.

Moved by the experience of wandering in temples and hearing the resonating sound of bells clanging in the wind, Montien Boonma attempts to recapture the feeling of inspiring awe overwhelmed with reverence. In Lotus sound, hundreds of terracotta bells are stacked in a shape of a curved wall. These bells become metaphors for a barrier and a filter, partially blocking the vision of the viewer. The imaginary sound of the bells serves to invoke inner peace within oneself. This invocation practised by believers is compared to a golden lotus with petals bursting forth in space. The lotus is a common symbol in Mahayana literature. The symbolic flowering of the lotus as the birthplace of Buddha and the attainment of Enlightenment are given explicit plastic expression in Burmese, Thai and Indian religious art. Instead of the petals opening to disclose the Buddha seated on the lotus pericarp, or the terracotta bells making sound, there is blankness and silence. These objects signify certain symbolic formulas for viewers to imagine the omnipresence of the Buddha.'

Prepared from material written by Apinan Poshyananda in The First Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art [exhibition catalogue], QAG, Brisbane, 1993, p.49.