It started with Romadon tearing himself from a plain white canvas. From there he clumped and clanged around the performance area, drinking, spewing and pouring paint in, what seemed at the time, a complete random fashion.
Replacing the American music of his previous performance, the Phuket-based artist twirled and spun to a compilation of traditional Thai music, interspersed with gun shots and breaking glass…
In typical Romadon style, he threw himself at the canvas more than once, rolled on the floor a few times and with an almost tangible amount of passion created an abstract image of black, yellow and red.
But the pièce de résistance came when, he once again became part of the canvas, immersing himself in the black section of the painting (as at this time he was covered from head to toe in dark paint), and pulled a thread from within the painting to reveal a Thai flag.
With obvious political overtones, the overall image was one which is sure to resonate with every Thai citizen and Thai resident – and one which now adds much more meaning to his words when The Phuket News met with him a few weeks ago.
He had said, “My performance will show love for the people, and encourage people to love one another. There are lots of problems right now in Thailand, in the south we have fighting between the Muslims and Buddhists and throughout Thailand there are problems with Red and Yellow shirts.”
He had added, “If we could just love each other and stop the problems, Thailand would be beautiful and we all could drink coffee together.”
Romadon’s shirt was covered in paint, so it was impossible to tell what polictical party, if any, he belongs to… More importantly however is that he loves Thailand…
He returned to Phuket on August 20 for some much-needed rest and repuceration and to spend time with his young family.
“My wife Idaya told me that she cried a little when she watched me on TV,” he said.
Idaya was unable to travel from their small Nai Harn home - which also doubles as Romadom’s studio - as she was taking care of their 3-month-old baby boy Moobarok.
It is they who motivate him and for them that he works tirelessly to create something that will not only make them happy, but also hopefully inspire a nation.
“I was very happy with the performance, I wanted to make it beautiful and not so scary this time around.”
It worked and his performance won the hearts of the three panel judges and the audience and now Romadom joins fellow Phuketian, Gig, in the upcoming grand final of the hit TV show on September 2.
Romadon is keen not to give too much away for his final performance, but anyone who knows his type of work will know what he means when he says, “I have an idea that every human comes from the ground until they die and go back to the ground... but I have many ideas and it will surely involve lots of colour.”
He is hoping that his wife and son will be able to make the treck to the capital to see him, but if they cannot, he is content that they will be watching on TV.
Even if little Moobarok is not yet old enough to recognise the ‘colourful man’ on the screen as his father, he can probably recognise his mother’s love for the man who is adding just a bit more colour to Thailand.