Moo's bench, and two companion works, Banana leaf and Broomstick (Acc. nos 1995.093-094) also held in the Collection, are crayon rubbings bordered by Thai text and the artist's footprint, on handmade saa paper. Each work features an object associated with traditional rural life (plank of wood, leaf, broom with bamboo shaft), and in each case the paper is mounted alongside a small documentary snapshot featuring the relevant rubbing situated in a rural context. This iconic presence of a mundane, often overlooked object, emphasises a simplicity and authenticity which highly urbanised centres are rapidly losing. Kamin Lertchaiprasert's photographs in the works, like appendages to the main image, remind the viewer that the pristine Western-style gallery displaying the work often belies the origins of the creative act.

During 1991 Lertchaiprasert travelled all over Thailand: 'I recorded what I saw along the way, and what I heard and felt. My feelings are reflected through my photographs and poems... Each day, walking about in my sandals, I took photographs and wrote poems to express my thoughts. And on each, when I returned ... I would stamp my rubber sandal, in whose sole I had carved my name... The footprint is used as a symbol of my travels. Next it is a signature, like a Chinese "chop mark" on my work. More important it is motivated by the 'Buddha Footprint', an object held in reverence by the Thais, located in Saraburi province. As a printmaker, I keep asking myself how the art of print-making originated? Couldn't there be some connection between the "Footprint" and the origin of printing art? Were the imprint of human footprints or vehicle traces carved in the earth, the forerunners of the concept of printmaking? Therefore was the "Buddha Footprint" found in Thailand about five centuries ago, the spark of inspiration that kindled the development of printing art in Thailand?'(1)

1. Lertchaiprasert, Kamin. in Niras Thailand in printmaking [exhibition catalogue], Dialogue Gallery, Bangkok, 1992, unpaginated.