Art exhibitions in Bangkok this February

Jacq, better known as Wayn Traub, has spent more than two decades building worlds that sit somewhere between devotion and delusion. This latest exhibition is a quiet summing up of 26 years across art, film, music and theatre. At its centre sits a group of hand-embroidered copes, slow works made with the patience of someone who clearly doesn’t rush endings. Since moving to Thailand in 2012, Traub has produced 25 of these monumental garments, each taking months to stitch. Twelve appear here, joined by shields and devotional objects, all worked on handwoven textiles from Sakon Nakhon. The imagery follows Minsterwood, his self-written dark fable set in a jungle monastery where nuns stitch vestments from violent histories. These pieces will later be worn on screen, making this a rare first encounter. A brooding soundtrack, also his, quietly seals the mood.

Until March 8. Free. RCB Galleria 5, River City Bangkok, 10am-8pm

Living among endless signs and half-baked meanings, it’s easy to forget how slippery reality has become. Banana in the Room plays with that exhaustion, using a familiar yellow fruit as a decoy for much heavier questions. Artist Szack leans on humour and recognisability, not for cheap laughs, but as a way to expose what we politely ignore. The reference is obvious. If an elephant suggests a looming problem nobody wants to name, this softer substitute points to issues dismissed because they feel harmless or even silly. That’s where the work sharpens. What looks playful begins to carry ideas around image, gender identity and the thin line between seeing and pretending not to. Laughter becomes a shield, an easy exit from discomfort. By treating the symbol as a joke, we avoid speaking plainly. Szack asks what happens when the joke stops landing and what we’re left refusing to face.

Until February 21. Free. 333Gallery, 11am-6pm

This project asks you to walk, linger and occasionally double back, spotting images tucked onto ageing facades, shopfronts and shrines across the Chinese quarter. They land like visual interruptions, half-glimpsed, then strangely familiar, as if the neighbourhood has been quietly carrying them for years. Photographs settle among old printing houses and long-shuttered newspaper offices, places where ink stains and memory still clings to brickwork. People and architecture are treated with equal care, each frame echoing the slow persistence of the area itself. Seeing the work means moving at street speed, letting traffic sounds and incense smoke fill the gaps between images. It becomes less about looking and more about paying attention. The walk confirms what locals already know: the old quarter isn’t frozen in time, it’s still speaking, if you’re willing to listen.

Until February 8. Free. Xing Zhong Yuan, 7am-midnight

Ideas don’t always arrive fully formed. Some stall, some drift, others get quietly shelved. This experience works like a gentle nudge, using images and sound to retrace the messy design process and wake up thoughts left unfinished. Framed as an Idea Hub, it feels less like an exhibition and more like a mental pit stop. The journey moves through three linked zones. UN-Seed starts small, focusing on the overlooked sparks where concepts usually begin. UN-Form follows, turning the room into an interactive art space that encourages hands-on thinking and playful decision-making. The final section, UN-Select, acts as a holding area for ideas not yet ready to move forward. Nothing is rushed. Visitors can pause, wander and take what they need, shaping meaning at their own speed rather than following a fixed route.

Until April 19. Free. MunMun Art Destination, 10.30am-7pm

Dark forest green sets the tone, less fantasy wallpaper and more quiet invitation. This exhibition treats imagination as a muscle worth stretching, guiding visitors through a contemporary fairytale shaped by 11 artists. Each brings a different lens, pulling identity apart and rebuilding it somewhere between myth and lived experience. The work sidesteps sugary childhood stories in favour of harder lessons: growth that hurts a bit, courage learned slowly, vulnerability shown without apology. Reality slips and daydreams take over, though neither fully wins. Once Upon a Time isn’t interested in neat endings or moral slogans. It works by reminding you of what those stories once gave before they were tidied up and commercialised. Old symbols resurface with fresh weight, carrying memory rather than nostalgia. The result feels reflective rather than escapist, offering a moment to recalibrate and leave with something quietly useful, not just a sense of wonder.

Until March 3. Free.  m Galleria 2, mangoSTEEMS Arts and Learning Center, 10am-7pm

Modern life sells the idea that more is better, faster is smarter, and comfort equals success. This body of work quietly disagrees. It looks at how technology and possessions tug at us from every direction, offering ease while thinning out whatever sits underneath. The images feel dense without shouting, asking viewers to slow down and sit with the tension between progress and being human. Loose, almost sketched figures drift between people, animals and objects, their outlines slipping as desire takes over. Lust, anger and delusion blur identities until nothing feels solid for long. Moments of stillness appear through circular forms and lotus motifs, small visual pauses that suggest another way of measuring value. Rather than offering answers, the exhibition leaves a question hanging. Is fulfilment really about gathering more, or does it begin when we learn to release?

February 14-March 8. Free. Number1Gallery, 10am-7pm

Five garden rooms shape this exhibition, each offering a different way of slowing down and paying attention. It begins with the Garden of Stillness, where quiet feels deliberate rather than empty, gently nudging visitors back toward their own headspace. The Garden of Connection follows, using natural textures, sound and touch to ground the body and steady the mind. The Garden of Motion asks for patience, rewarding those who linger with subtle shifts in light and shadow as day quietly gives way to night. Memory comes next, wrapped in translucent layers where light softens and recollections gradually loosen their grip. The final space, the Garden of Imagination, plays with contrast, mixing past and future through art and technology while hiding small objects to be discovered along the way. Two additional rooms extend the experience through hands-on workshops and thoughtfully designed keepsakes. It feels less like a spectacle and more like a gentle recalibration, offering a refreshed idea of what a garden can be.

February 14-23. Free. Galleria 3, River City Bangkok, 10am-10pm

Order takes centre stage at first glance, all clean lines and polite geometry. Look a little longer and small fractures begin to show. This body of work builds images from layered forms that slip out of alignment, gently nudging viewers away from certainty and towards feeling. Memory, longing and the uneasy gap between human ambition and the natural world surface without announcement. Nothing moves, yet everything feels unsettled. Bright, soothing colours act as a disguise for quieter questions about control and its limits. The work resists spectacle or slogans. Instead, it rewards patience. Walking slowly through the space, you start to notice how imbalance does the talking. Misplaced lines linger in the mind, suggesting fragility rather than failure. The experience stays subtle, almost restrained, allowing unease to arrive on its own terms and settle somewhere personal rather than prescribed.

Until February 15. Free. Joyman Gallery, 11am-6pm

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

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

Order feels increasingly fragile. Systems wobble, tempers shorten and the future arrives looking less polite than promised. Against that backdrop, Bangkok Design Week returns with a sharper sense of purpose and fewer rhetorical flourishes. The long-running question ‘What can design do?’ has shifted gear. In 2026, it lands as a demand for action, grounded, practical and impatient. This year’s theme, DESIGN S/O/S, frames creativity as a working tool rather than a decorative extra. Secure Domestic looks at strengthening local economies through new standards. Outreach Opportunities pushes collaboration beyond borders with confidence rather than bravado. Sustainable Future focuses on survival that lasts longer than a trend cycle. Design here belongs to everyone, not just studios and showrooms. The ninth edition invites thinkers, makers and sceptics alike to act, test ideas and keep moving forward together.

January 29-February 8. Free. Citywide.

Song Wat turns playful without losing its sense of history. For Bangkok Design Week, the district becomes a walkable board game, stretching across streets that once carried trade, gossip and daily deals. Building on the earlier manhole cover project, this new chapter invites visitors to play merchant, navigating landmarks and stories that shaped the neighbourhood’s working life. Set along Song Wat Road at Tuk Khaek, Merchants of Song Wat reimagines the area as a network of warehouses and shops. Players move as caravans, trading goods, striking bargains with local businesses and slowly building their own corner of commerce. The rules stay friendly, the visuals clear, drawing from familiar colours and signs around the area. 

January 29-February. Free. Song Wat, 2pm-8pm on weekdays and 1pm-7pm on weekends.

Memory often settles in the body before it reaches language. A brush of skin, the pressure of a hand, the sting that lingers just long enough to stay. This project leans on that idea, inviting Badego.bodega to curate an intimate gathering of seven tattoo artists: De hour, Deanxittt, Ice House Studio, Lau Garan Studio, matattyesyes, Sakiw Tattoo and Troll The Tatt. Together, their works read like a shared archive of touch, where personal histories sit quietly beneath ink. Each mark holds a moment that resisted words, shaped instead through line, colour and trust. The exchange between artist and wearer matters as much as the finished image, a private conversation made visible. What emerges feels tender rather than dramatic, reminding us that presence is often felt through skin, not screens, and remembered long after the feeling fades.

January 29-March 19. Free. MunMun Srinakarin, 10.30am-9.30pm

Hands still matter, even now. At Rosewood Bangkok, Made in Thai-Hands arrives through a collaboration with Play Art House, offering a thoughtful look at living craft traditions shaped by patience rather than speed. Curated by independent artist Seada Samdao, the exhibition brings together 10 Thai artists working between inherited techniques and contemporary thinking, without treating either as fixed. Moving through the space feels like travelling across different landscapes, guided by texture, material and touch. Threads hold hours of quiet labour, pigment settles through instinct and surfaces reveal years of repetition. Nothing rushes for attention. Instead, each work carries the weight of human effort and the calm confidence that comes from knowing a process deeply. While the rhythms of making remain central, the voices feel current, led by a generation carrying tradition forward with clarity rather than reverence. Craft here feels alive, personal and quietly defiant.

Until March 20. Free. G/F, Rosewood Bangkok, 9am-9pm