Abstract:
In the past, cartoon was categorized as applied art and obviously considered as low art and inferior to fine art. In these days, the barrier between fine art and cartoon has been partially diminished as it can be seen that there are a lot of contemporary artists who create fine art that yet contains cartoon elements. Thai contemporary artists are also fall in the group. This thesis aims to present the way cartoon is utilized in Thai contemporary art. It categorizes the aspects of cartoon into 6 aspects which are 1) cartoon containing elements of figurative art elements, 2) narrative cartoon, 3) visually simple cartoon, 4) surrealist cartoon, 5) comedic cartoon, and 6) cartoon focusing on language and text. The author applies these 6 aspects as criteria to choose Thai contemporary artists to analyze, consisting of 7 artists which are 1) Krissadank Intasorn, 2) Kiatanan Iamchan, 3) Tawee Rujaneekorn, 4) Thaweesak Srithongdee, 5) Patcharapol Tangruen, 6) Lampu Kansanoh and 7) Vasan Sitthiket. The article will categorize the artists into 4 groups based on contents which are 1) social issue group, 2) sexuality issue group, 3) political issue group and 4) religious issue group in which the author will describe what aspects of cartoon are contained on each work of art by each artist and how the aspects are utilized. The study shows that Thai contemporary artists present them artworks with different forms and quantities of aspects of cartoon. Furthermore, these aspects are popular at the present time, although the forms and the contents of the work contradicts each other, indicating that in these days Thai contemporary art movement accepts works that contain elements of cartoon as fine art.