Poramit Thantapalit

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PULSE: Resonating Earth: Bergen Community College's Gallery Bergen
(September 22 - December 8, 2022)​
Location: Gallery Bergen, Bergen Community College, 3rd floor, West Hall, 400 Paramus Road, Paramus, NJ 07652
Gallery hours: Mon: 9am-6pm, Tues: 10am-7:30pm, Weds: 12-8pm, Thurs: 9am-6:30pm, Fri 12-6pm
• View 3D Virtual Tour
Curatorial/Artistic Statement
This installation represents an artist's connection to their environment and interrogation of the unexamined choices made in daily life. Poramit's artwork is made with recycled and non-recycled domestic and household materials collected from his own use over ten years, including plastic bags, plastic bottles, cardboard, discarded paper, magazine, used clothing, cereal boxes and egg cartons. Their repurposing and aestheticization is a commentary on the impact of waste on the natural environment. Through the mindful selection of these materials found in everyday settings, the artist encourages the conversation about the waste we generate in the hope of challenging us to reconsider how we interact with everyday things. The overarching goal to is protect the environment in which we live.

"My seven installations and three wearable sculptures are a good example of how much waste we generate. I hope to inspire people to look at environmental issues carefully. I think art is an important way to inspire people to protect our environment." says artist Poramit Thantatpalit.

There is a genre referred to as eco-art, or "trash art," but this is something very different. Jackson Pollock painted with house paint, but he wasn't a house painter. Poramit's deft artistic hand and his understanding of transforming quantity into quality creates work that transcends its materials..

Artist, Poramit Thantapalit 
Gallery Bergen Curator, Tim Blunk
List of Poramit's Artwork
List of Installations:
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1. Jellyfish Under the Sea
  • Description: This installation represents life under the sea. The plastic bags in this installation symbolizes pollution. They will become microplastic and harmful to our marine life. Stop using plastic to save our ocean.
  • Material used: Jellyfish are made from plastic bags with LED light inset. Coral is made from fused plastic bags, plastic bottles and 35 mm slide frames. Sea urchin made from rubber seals, electric cords and zip ties. Bubble globes are made from paper mache with string thread inside and LED light inset. Wall installation of Cyanotype print on paper is a backdrop.
2. ReTree
  • Description: This installation is created from the top part of plastic bottles to form a tree. We should plant trees to help fight climate change and air pollution.
  • Materials used: Over 300 of 7up and Mountain Dew plastic bottles
3. Coral Cloud
  • Description:  This installation is made out of cut plastic containers. Wire and staples are used to tight plastic strip as a net to form the sculpture. The shape of this installation moves like both a coral reef and a billowy cloud.
  • Material used: milk jugs, yogurt cups and plastic containers.
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4. Butterfly Maiden 
  • Description: Over 500 paper butterflies form the woman's face. The butterfly is a metaphor for positive transformations, hope during a dark time, comfort and new beginnings.
  • Material used: Paper cut and origami from discarded books, magazines and junk mail.
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5. Cityscape
  • Description: This installation combines paper and plastic materials. They are group of free stand sculptures to form the city landscape with LED light inset. Black towers are our waste. Green towers is our nature. We should develop the sustainable city to protect our environment, reduce waste and create more green space.
  • Materials used: Plastic bottles and egg cartons.
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6. Milky Way Galaxy and Starlette Paper Dress*
  • Description: This installation combines wall and ceiling installation with video projection mapping. Starlette Paper Dress represents the human who is the center of the universe. We have to be aware of our surroundings and environment.
  • Materials used: Cloth hangers, used clothing, cardboard, cereal boxes, food packaging and mesh net bags.
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​7. Blue Period and Blue Lego Dress*
  • Description: The cyanotype photogram represents an archive footprint or photocopy of my artwork during work in progress. They also come from photos of my surrounding, landscape, architecture, people and during travel. Including video about my cyanotype work in mixed media formats.
  • Material used: Cyanotype photogram prints on paper.
*List of Wearable Sculptures:
Starlette Paper Dress is made from cardboard boxes and brown paper bags with LED light inset, 65"Hx34"Wx48"D, 2022
Flora Frock is made from over 300 plastic bottles, yogurt cups, milk jugs and plastic containers,  72"Hx72"Wx96"D, 2020
Blue Lego Dress is made from discarded paper, cardboard and cereal boxes and covered with digital negative cyanotype prints of Lego, 62"Hx36"Wx36"D, 2015
Installation Days
Time-lapse video during installation process (August 29 - Septmeber 13, 2022) at Bergen Gallery more videos
Opening Reception & Rehearsal (September 22, 2022, 7 pm at Gallery Bergen) more videos
Modern dance performing by Lynn Needle and Art of Motion Dance Theatre, Music by pianist Carolyn Enger
Closing Performance (December 8, 2022, 7 pm at Gallery Bergen) more videos
Modern dance performing by Lynn Needle and Art of Motion Dance Theatre, Music by pianist Carolyn Enger, Live percussion by Teddy Gibbons set within art installation by Poramit Thantapalit
Press Release

PULSE: Resonating Earth
September 22 - December 8, 2022

Bergen Community College’s Gallery Bergen announces its fall exhibition featuring an installation by Poramit Thantapalit with performance art by Art of Motion Dance Theatre and music by pianist Carolyn Enger.
During the fall of 2022, Gallery Bergen will be transformed into an aquatic installation by Thai artist Poramit Thantapalit. His medium is trash - as in found plastic bottles, plastic bags, and other refuse that might have as easily found its way into the Hackensack River, a landfill, or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Instead, Poramit breathes life into these materials, shaping luminous organic sculptures that undulate and pulse from the ceiling and wall. They make the viewer forget their origins in their newly aggregated forms.

This program has been made possible in part by a grant administered by the Bergen County Department of Parks, Division of Cultural and Historic Affairs from funds granted by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

Special gala opening performance: Thursday, September 22 at 7:00 pm • Free ticket
Closing reception: Thursday, December 8, 2022 at 7:00 pm
Location: Gallery Bergen, Bergen Community College, 3rd floor, West Hall, 400 Paramus Road, Paramus, NJ 07652
Gallery hours:Mon: 9am-6pm, Tues: 10am-7:30pm, Weds: 12-8pm, Thurs: 9am-6:30pm, Fri 12-6pm
Poster
Press release
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