This Thai artist creates large scale works of art from unwanted scrap metal

Where others see bits and pieces of scrap metal destined for the trash heap, Thai artist and designer Saruta “Pin” Kiatparkpoom uses the raw materials for her awe-inspiring art installations.

In her bustling studio in Bangkok, Pin and her team of welders and artisans work to cut, roll, shape and join thousands of pieces of oddly shaped scrap metal by hand. These formerly unwanted bits of metal are painstakingly upcycled into art pieces that are displayed throughout Thailand as well as in luxury malls and prestigious art fairs in other parts of the world.

“My ultimate hope and goal is to give scrap metal a new life. I do not want people to see metal as tough and hard, I would like them to see that metal can flow and it is light, soft and curvy because these sculptures are made by a woman,” she said.

Her father owns a steel factory, so she grew up around metal. But Pin said she did not always appreciate the art of metalwork. “Growing up, I always heard the machine noises, and I did not like it. This is because the factory was also my house and I had to deal with the unpleasant machine oil and dirt on a daily basis,” she recalled.

However, the turning point came when she was in university and her teacher encouraged her to experiment with metal.

“I began noticing how the little metal scraps in the factory have a beautiful shape and form. I saw the workers in my father’s factory arranging the pieces and creating repetitive patterns that inspired me to connect the smaller pieces into bigger pieces,” she said. “I realised that when I assemble metal waste, it becomes beautiful and can bring smiles to the viewer.”

This epiphany became her inspiration to continue working with metal by creating artworks from scraps salvaged from the factory. For her art thesis, she built a mural inspired by the factory workers, where she incorporated their images into her creation.

“How can I use art as a tool to lead our workers to a better life mentally and socially? I want them to have better lives through making this art,” she said. “I started to see the value of the metal scraps and how beautiful they are. This discovery changed my life and made me see the value of what I have.”

So, upon graduation, Pin set up a workshop with the goal of making household objects and metal sculptures with scrap pieces to eliminate waste and to provide quality jobs to more workers.

Her father Phonipipat Kiatparkpoom is one of her biggest supporters. He encouraged her by providing her some space for her first work studio and supplying her with metal from his factory. “At the beginning when she started her business, I told her to keep her focus. Nothing is impossible because if we try hard, we will finally make it,” he said. “I am proud of her and what she has achieved.”

She has since won multiple awards like the Design Excellence Award by Thailand’s Trade Department in 2013 and the Young Design Talent of the Year at the 2016 Elle Decoration Thailand Design Awards.

Pin also frequently exhibits her work at the prestigious Maison & Objet trade fair in Paris, created art pieces for the popular Wonderfruit festival in Pattaya and has produced sculptures for prominent Thai property developers including Sansiri and Siam Piwat.

Reflecting on her creations, she said: “The challenge of bringing things that have no value back to life or changing people's perceptions towards scrap metal for the better is quite difficult. I ask myself, how can I take something that costs 10 baht a kilogramme and then elevate it so that it can sell for tens or hundreds of thousands of baht?”

To prove her naysayers wrong, she tirelessly works to make her creations ever more intricate and complex. One of her proudest moments has been creating a massive dining pavilion in Bangkok’s Icon Siam mall, which can fit some 60 people.

The main challenge was figuring out how to implement decorative art into the space while making it functional. So, she decided to create an installation that looked like the metal had been woven together. “I wanted to weave the metal and make it look softer than silk,” she said.

The resulting pavilion was so large it had to be split up to fit into the mall’s elevators and reassembled within the mall.Another feat was creating an intricate lotus chandelier for the Golden Mountain Temple in Thailand. Construction scaffolding even had to be built so that it could be installed on the 15m high ceiling. But it is well worth the effort when the team sees the fruit of their labour.

Pornsak “Sak” Chaisaeng, who is from Laos, has spent the last few years learning about art and design from Kiatparkpoom. He has worked on several projects, including the Icon Siam pavilion, with her.

Chaisaeng said: “Most of the time, this kind of work is done by people who have studied art. I actually came to Thailand to pick up skills like these, so when I contribute to such creations, I feel a sense of satisfaction that I played a part in making art.”

It is in fact one of Pin’s main motivations to offer such valuable opportunities to her artisans. Emphasising the importance of collaboration, she said: “What I want to pass on to other people is that no matter what activity you are doing or what business you are running, you can make a positive impact. You can go fast alone, or you can choose to go far together and it will be more sustainable and fun that way.”