Esan Girl is an art project commenced in 2017 by Tawee Kesa-Ngam, in cooperation with an international art collector based in London. The purpose of the project is to create masterpiece paintings that celebrate the special beauty of the women of Esan. The project has three pillars.

1. The concept of female beauty as divine beauty.

2. Esan, an earthly paradise.

3. Esan, a land of goddesses, women of extraordinary beauty.

Master Tawee works primarily in watercolor and is recognized as one of the most accomplished watercolor artists in the world. The masterpiece paintings created to date are watercolor, although he remains open to the possibility of working in other media in the future.

The works are large scale paintings, 1 or 1.5 metres in width and height. They are much larger than traditional watercolor pictures, which are frequently less than 30cm in width and height. Watercolor is the most difficult medium for an artist because mistakes cannot be “painted over” as in oils; for example, the most important (oil) picture in the world, the Mona Lisa, comprises the final version painted over 3 earlier versions. That is not possible with watercolor, which must be “right first time”. The watercolor standard is generally considered too difficult for most artists working today.

Watercolor art has been the pre-eminent medium in Asian art for centuries, particularly in China and Japan. In Europe and America, many of the most important artists worked in watercolor including Durer, Constable, Audubon, Turner, Whistler, Cezanne, van Gogh, Sargent and Hopper. Master Tawee follows in the footsteps of these great artists. His technical approach is unusual. Over 50 years, Master Tawee has developed a unique technique (“the secret sauce”) for creating large, highly detailed and very complex pictures in watercolor. This technique requires “genius level” expertise in drawing and brush work to execute. There are very few artists, if any, working today, who could replicate Master Tawee’s work. His work is almost impossible to copy.

His approach is extremely time intensive, and requires enormous physical effort, intensity and patience. These qualities are rarely seen today, and we associate them with a different world, a different time. Michelangelo spent 4 years painting the Sistine Chapel, an endeavor no living artist today would undertake. Master Tawee’s largest masterpieces can take up to 9 months to complete and involves work through the night and into the early morning. He draws on his training as a young artist, working at home, in the evening, using only the light of a candle.

The aesthetic foundation of Esan Girl is unique. It rests on the fusion of the ideas of Plato concerning beauty, with composition inspiration from the great Renaissance artists, and Master Tawee’s deep spiritual connection with Esan.

The Esan Girl masterpieces are unique. There are no other paintings like these in the world. This singularity rests on the watercolor medium, Tawee’s proprietary technique, his genius-level drawing and brushwork, his patience and work intensity, and the aesthetic foundation. We hope in time they will be recognized as some of the most important contemporary Thai paintings created in the modern era.

Today, AI (artificial intelligence) can create professional quality art in a fraction of a second. The contemporary art world is concerned with the latest trend, it requires instant gratification and social political narratives. So we have a lot of generic, me-too art – anime memes, pop-art on steroids, etc. The most collectable artists today run “art factories”, using multiple support workers to do much of the painting. The emphasis is on speed, producing as much saleable art as quickly as possible; making art has become an industrial process.

Esan Girl stands deliberately outside many of these trends, disconnected from speed, technology and current fashion. Esan Girl is based on the idea that great art is concerned with important truths about what it means to be human, the importance of beauty, and the supremacy of nature. Great art requires time, patience and hard work. These are ideas which have endured for 2500 years since the time Plato. These truths are the basis for the greatest art ever created, Renaissance art. These truths will live on for many centuries to come. The most important museums and collectors will continue to buy traditional art, made using paint and paper/canvas, in the belief that great art lives forever. It is a privilege to own a piece of great art, something only few people can achieve. It is Master Tawee’s hope that the Esan Girl paintings will be acquired by collectors who share his vision of perfect, divine beauty. Collectors who recognize that owning an Esan Girl painting provides a perpetual window into paradise.

Master Tawee uses on the finest museum-quality materials (paper and paint) available anywhere. He sources his materials globally to ensure his masterpieces can hang on the walls of galleries and museums for hundreds of years.