Seven Bangkok art exhibitions to see before January ends

The next most important thing after love

Maho Takahashi’s solo exhibition speaks softly, trusting that memory does the heavy lifting. Her works return to a gentler world, one that feels familiar even if it cannot be placed exactly. Childhood appears not as nostalgia but as texture: fleeting moods, half-remembered comforts and the quiet confusion of growing older without noticing it happen. Rather than spelling anything out, Takahashi leaves space. Images hover, emotions shift slightly and meaning waits for the viewer to bring their own history to the surface. It feels personal without becoming precious, reflective without leaning sentimental. This is an exhibition that understands growing up as an ongoing process rather than a finished state. Children moving towards adulthood sit alongside adults still figuring things out, often using the same tools. What lingers most is a sense of permission to feel gently, to remember unevenly and to accept that some memories work better when left a little unresolved.

Until March 8. Free. CURU Gallery, midday-5pm

A pork shop in a Narathiwat market becomes an unlikely stage for Thijme Maassen’s first solo exhibition, and that feels entirely the point. The Dutch sculptor, who moves between Thailand and the Netherlands, borrows the rhythms of butchery – slicing, grinding, hanging – and folds them back into his own methods. Pork appears not as metaphor but as matter, loaded with labour, habit and familiarity. Maassen also toys with the cartoon pigs found on shop logos, all smiles and cuteness, spoons raised. Reused here, those friendly faces start asking awkward questions about appetite and denial. Two drinks created with Duemdum Space,  Reset Sip, Eating Pork? arrives as lemon tea in a water bucket, while Plum-Boiled Pork Cola leans sweet and strange. Both are for staying put and talking longer.

January 31-February 3. Free. Duemdum Space, 7pm-9pm

FUSE makes his Thailand debut with IGNITE, a solo exhibition that sits between cultures without trying to smooth the edges. Born in 1985 and now based in Tokyo, he works through oil paint, folding Japanese and American pop references into images that feel familiar yet slightly unsettled. At the centre is LOOKA, a recurring figure shaped by cloud-like lines that never quite settle. The form shifts from canvas to canvas, hovering between character and idea. Guided by the notion of seeing with the mind’s eye, LOOKA looks back at a world crowded with information, searching for something steadier underneath. Clouds stand for freedom, though they also blur vision, turning clarity into mist. That tension runs quietly through the work. Nothing here offers easy answers, only a reminder that truth often hides behind soft edges and patient looking.

Until February 8. Free. KYLA Gallery and Wine Bar, 3pm-midnight

Jesper Haynes presents a photography exhibition that looks back at downtown New York in the ‘80s and ‘90s with clear eyes and no soft focus. Faces feel close, streets feel tight and the city shows itself without asking for permission. Featuring figures like Andy Warhol and Naomi Campbell, the work traces Haynes’ long fascination with street life, sparked when Warhol invites him to New York as a teenager and quietly changes his direction. Haynes earns a reputation for photographing the edges of urban life with honesty that never feels staged. His black-and-white images read like pages torn from a private notebook, raw but deliberate. Often described as a rebel diarist, he documents nights, friendships and passing moments that refuse nostalgia. What stays with you is the intimacy, as if the city leans over to tell you a secret and trusts you not to interrupt.

January 24-February 14. Free. Chaloem La Art House, midday-6pm

A Kid from Yesterday returns with a fifth solo outing that feels quietly defiant. Somphon ‘Paolo’ Ratanavaree’s latest body of work steps back from certainty and sits without knowing, a rare move in a culture obsessed with definitions. Titled “Just” BEING BE/NG BE—NG, the exhibition borrows from Camus’ Philosophy of Sisyphus while nodding to the calm discipline of a Zen garden. The result isn’t comfort or escape, but acceptance of contradiction. Cigarettes sit opposite raked sand, everyday habits facing ritual stillness, neither winning the argument. This space doesn’t promise healing or answers. It allows doubt to exist without apology. Being human here means pausing, noticing and carrying on regardless. In a world eager for declarations, the show suggests something softer and braver: existing without explanation might already be enough.

January 17-March 1. Free. Street Star Gallery, 8am-6pm

Ayino, Verapong Sritrakulkitjakarn paints as if remembering something just before it slips away. Dream gathers oil works shaped by half-formed thoughts, private histories and the odd details that linger after waking. Figures drift alongside objects, cartoons brush up against quieter symbols and nothing quite settles long enough to be pinned down. Linework moves with a nervous softness, guiding the eye through scenes that hover between recollection and invention. Meaning refuses to behave, shifting depending on who is looking and what they bring with them. Ayino treats painting less as storytelling and more as a way of thinking aloud, using colour and form to test feelings he cannot fully name. The result resembles a place you recognise without knowing why. Fragile, absorbing and gently unsettling, Dream sits with the idea that understanding does not always arrive neatly and that uncertainty can be oddly comforting.

Until February 8. Free. Number 1 Gallery, 10am-10pm

The Imprint Project opens its first chapter with a focus on marks that travel further than borders. Conceived as an international printmaking initiative, the idea is simple and generous: one country at a time, letting each exhibition carry its own cultural residue. This edition brings together 16 artists from Poland alongside works from Pracownia414 Studio, forming a conversation that moves through technique, texture and intention. Printmaking here isn’t treated as a historical footnote but as a living language shaped by social conditions and personal memory. Etchings, presses and layered surfaces reveal how identity settles on paper in quiet but deliberate ways. The project itself acts as a meeting point, linking artists across continents while offering audiences a chance to read the traces left behind. Not grand statements, but thoughtful impressions that reward close looking and patient attention.

Until January 30. Free. Arun Amarin 23 Art Space, 11am-4pm