As pro-democracy protests in Thailand roll on through a second year of military crackdowns and stifled dissent, Thai artists are using visual imagery to challenge censorship and question the nation’s power structures. Artists have been among the many Thais arrested under the country’s draconian lèse-majesté and flag laws, which make criticising the monarchy a crime. Yet some Thai artists have carried on making art with strong political messages – even if their strategies are now less direct. Wittawat Tongkeaw, a painter in Bangkok, has just unveiled new works at his solo exhibition “The L/Royal Monument”. His hyperrealistic oil landscapes seem to be of unremarkable, ordinary scenes and objects but they conceal messages about Thailand’s political situation. A painting of the sun either rising or setting at the end of a street symbolises both the end of an era and the coming of a new one. A white wall relief decorated with flowers is marred by what look like bullet holes – the artist says the piece is inspired by the killing of six civilians at Bangkok’s Wat Pathum Wanaram temple in 2010. The white wall depicts the illusion that “everything is normal”, he says. Another of Wittawat’s paintings features a blindingly bright sun above clouds in the sky, a reference to a poem by Wisa Khanthap, a literary figure who participated in the 1973 pro-democracy movement. The poem contains a line that can be translated as “When the sky turns golden, People will be great in the land”. These serene, photo-like landscapes are part realistic and part imagined, coded in a way that is open to interpretation, says Chol Janepraphaphan, the curator of the exhibition at SAC Gallery. Thai protests fade from streets but come alive on Clubhouse, Twitter By comparison, Sippakorn Khiaosanthia, an artist who goes by the moniker Baphoboy, often uses disturbing imagery to refer to the ongoing political tensions. The 25-year-old says he joined a student-led movement called “Unmuted Project” last year which uses social media and pop-up exhibitions to highlight the role of art in the Thai protests. One of his paintings, The Dog Worshipper (2021), shows people bowing to a dog, referring to the idea that the king’s pets have more rights than Thai people. Art openly critical of the monarchy was unheard of in the past because of the taboo against any show of disrespect for the royal family and the popularity of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej. But Sippakorn is from a new generation of digitally savvy Thais who are less afraid of speaking out against King Maha Vajiralongkorn and the royal family. While the “Unmuted Project” movement has become less active after the arrest of student leaders and other protesters, Sippakorn is keen to continue its mission to use art to draw more people into the movement. The risks are clear. In January, a 63-year-old former civil servant known as Anchan was jailed for a record 43 years for reposting anti-government podcasts on social media – a court found she had broken the lèse-majesté law. The law is now being heavily enforced in the arts, Sippakorn says. In March, two art students at Chiang Mai University were charged with insulting the monarchy and showing disrespect for the Thai flag. The students, Witthaya Klungnin and Yutsunthon Rattapradit, had shown a work consisting of a large Thai flag laid on the ground. The central blue stripe, which represents the monarchy, was replaced by a transparent plastic sheet with mannequins underneath representing two Thai activists who were found dead after fleeing the country in December 2018. K-pop fans of BTS, Blackpink, Exo show power in Thai protests “There is the saying: Cut the throat of the chicken for the monkey to see,” Sippakorn says, adding the arrests have had a chilling effect on many in Thailand’s art world. A lot of Thailand’s more provocative art has moved online. One of the nation’s best-known street artists, known only as Headache Stencil, has said the police have been stalking him because of his graffiti lampooning General Prayuth Chan-ocha and other members of the ruling military government. In June, he launched an art collection titled “Fight Together With Myanmar” in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to raise money for the pro-democracy movement. Frenzied bidding for NFT art, which is based on a decentralised technology related to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, has seen some digital art selling for astronomical amounts. Sippakorn marketed his The Dog Worshipper artwork digitally. In June, he dropped the NFT for the work on Opensea platform and sold it for 0.1 Ether (currently worth around US$200). For other artists, making art for the crypto world is an escape from local politics. Sina Wittayawiroj, who has been attacked for his political art, is now selling NFTs that satirise the 1990s internet culture he grew up with. He used to react to the news and photographs about what was happening in Thailand and create art that represented a reversed balance of power, for example in conflicts between protesters and the police. As a result he was harassed last year by a group calling themselves “Secret Is Not Secret”, he says. His photograph and his name were published on Facebook with the message, “This guy is hurting the monarchy”, and he was targeted by online trolls. He started out making NFTs of his political art on Rarible and other platforms but he found the international community was so unfamiliar with Thai politics that none of his references were understood. It is a cultural difference, he says, and people are not interested in what they don’t understand. His new works are more universal. One piece, for example, is of the Windows wallpaper ‘error’ pop-up message. Art like this, Sina says, is what he used to draw for himself as a hobby, though after studying fine art, all his work became political. Going back to humorous comics and animation, he adds, has given him a break from political art. Artists’ taut canvases bring Hong Kong protests to life Despite various pauses because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the protest movement in Thailand has never been entirely halted. On June 24, after a three-month pause, Thai protesters demonstrated to commemorate the anniversary of the end of Thailand’s absolute monarchy in 1932. Protesters continue to demand the dissolution of Prayuth’s government, as well as constitutional amendments and monarchy reform. The protests have freed artists to express themselves in new ways. Wittawat says he feels liberated, even though he is aware of the harassment and punishment endured by other artists. “The protests have made everything more open, and people are more willing to come out and criticise what has happened,” he says. “That this has happened is also allowing me to paint these paintings as well.”