Montien Boonma was born in Bangkok, Thailand, in 1953. After graduating with a Master of Fine Arts from Silpakorn University, Bangkok, the artist furthered his studies in France at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and at the Université de Paris VIII, Faculté des Arts Plastiques, Saint-Denis. In 1984 he received the Honour Award for 'art against pollution', Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. A gifted sculptor, Boonma consistently searched for ways of realising a contemporary sculptural practice within a local as well as an international context. In this he was a pioneer in Thailand and influenced an entire generation of young artists by providing an alternative conceptual framework for the development of contemporary sculpture.

Boonma was a devout Buddhist and turned to its discipline as a means of thinking about the contemporary world. Aware of a rapidly modernising Thai society and a related distancing and rupturing of traditional forms of spiritual life, he continued to reflect on Buddhist thought as an essential starting point for his practice. He used familiar Buddhist symbols such as the bowl, bell and lotus as one method of locating the works within a specific belief and ritual system. He also extended many of his sculptures to incorporate process based elements, such as the meditation sculptures. These structures often appealed to the sensory aspects of the body — scent, sound, sight — as a means of creating a space to lead the viewer/participant into contemplation and reflection. Often involving the use of traditional herbs smearing and lining the sculptures, these works constructed a space in which the psychological/spiritual body was brought into focus via the physical. He used a range of material, from earth and rice flour to terracotta, wood, steel and cement. Boonma consistently explored the sensuality of his material but always as a means of offering a meditation. His works never drift into the realm of nostalgia for a lost tradition, but are instead rigorous and poetic articulations. Boonma was diagnosed with cancer in mid 1999 and died on 17 August 2000 after a valiant struggle with the disease. He continued to make works right up to the time of his death.

Boonma participated in many international group shows including 'The Readymade Boomerang', 8th Biennale of Sydney in 1990; 'The First Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art' in Brisbane in 1993; 'Traditions/Tensions' at the Asia Society New York in 1996; 'Trace', the Liverpool Biennale of 1999; the Third Shanghai Biennale, 'Shanghai Spirit'; and 'Glocal Scents of Thailand' in 2000. He had numerous solo exhibitions in Bangkok, Tokyo, New York and Stuttgart. Since his death in 2000, his work has been the subject of a number of posthumous retrospective exhibitions, including 'Memorial Exhibition for Montien Boonma', Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka 2000; 'Face to Faith', Goldsmiths College, London 2001; 'Montien Boonma: Temple of the Mind', Asia Society, New York 2003; and 'Montien Boonma: Death Before Dying', The National Gallery of Art Bangkok, 2004. His work was also shown in 'APT 2002: Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art' at the Queensland Art Gallery. Aside from public and corporate collections in Thailand, the artist is represented in the collections of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan; the National Gallery of Australia; the Art Gallery of New South Wales; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo; and the Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art in Athens.

Essay by Suhanya Raffel, Assistant Curator, Contemporary Asian Art, Oct. 2000, updated by Ruth McDougall, Curatorial Assistant, QAGOMA, Oct. 2005.

Feature image: Montien Boonma installing his work Lotus sound 1992 for APT1, QAG, 1993 / Photograph: Christabelle Baranay / Image courtesy: QAGOMA Research Library / © QAGOMA