Be Takerng Art Estate
Be Takerng
Pattanopas Curtin
"The space within, the space without."
About
Be Takerng Pattanopas Curtin (1965–2025) was a Thai contemporary artist and academic whose practice was rooted in twin obsessions with space within and space without. Over three decades, he created sculptures, installations, paintings, and drawings that transformed medical and anatomical imagery into luminous philosophical questions about the nature of the human body and space.
Born in Bangkok, Be Takerng earned his PhD in fine art from Cheltenham & Gloucester CHE and served as an Assistant Professor and Director of the Communication Design Programme at Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Architecture. He exhibited internationally at venues including Catherine Schubert Fine Art (Bangkok), GMT+7 (Brussels), Tally Beck Contemporary (New York), H Gallery (Bangkok), the Koppel Project (London), and Gallery VER (Bangkok).
His work has been reviewed in frieze, Flash Art, and the Bangkok Post, and is held in private and institutional collections worldwide. Major commissions include GAP the Mind (2012) for i Light Marina Bay in Singapore — his largest installation to date — and his final solo exhibition Space of 25 Light Years at JWD Art Space (2021).
In 2025, Be Takerng's work was posthumously featured in The Abyss Is Calling at Gallery VER, curated by Rirkrit Tiravanija, and in 2026 in Flesh and Bones: The Art of Anatomy at ArtScience Museum, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore.
Highlights
Selected Works
Rotating selection — refreshed weekly
Support
Support the Be Takerng Legacy
The Be Takerng Art Estate is building a comprehensive archive of the artist's work, with plans for a retrospective publication in 2027/2028. Acquiring a work directly funds archival preservation, cataloguing, and future exhibitions.
Support the Estate →Journey
A Life in Art
The story of Be Takerng Pattanopas — from his earliest works through his final exhibition and the Estate that continues his legacy.
Born in Bangkok
Be Takerng Pattanopas Curtin was born in Bangkok, Thailand, beginning a life that would bridge art, academia, and the exploration of interior space.
First Works
Began creating sculptures, installations, photography, and drawings addressing space and light as representations of the human body.
Early Sculptures
Created early life-cast works including Alien, Space of Buddha's Head, and Spaced Head — exploring concave forms, voids, and the body as architectural space.
Pneuma Begins
Developed maquettes for the Pneuma series — concave plaster casts lit to suggest three-dimensionality, viewed through tunnel structures that carried an aura of the sacred.
Body-Space Series
Exhibited Pneuma installations and Body-Space works at the Axiom Gallery, Cheltenham, England. Developed Ether and Defining the Body with Shells series.
PhD & Brussels Debut
Completed PhD in fine art from Cheltenham & Gloucester CHE. Presented Pneuma and Prana installations at GMT+7 gallery in Brussels.
Ashwattha Proposal
Created Ashwattha, a proposal for a Tsunami Memorial — the tree of life as a bridge between cosmic and human scales.
Mould Boy
Created Mould Boy, a life-cast of a pregnant belly in white cement — featured in Wallpaper* magazine. Continued exploration of the body as container and void.
Breakthrough Works
Created major works including gas-p 1, HAL-O 1, Succumb, Pneuma 2, and Erogenous Landscape. Solo exhibition Prana: Art, Light, Space at Chulalongkorn University Art Center.
Interior Horizons
Solo exhibition Interior Horizons at Catherine Schubert Fine Art, Bangkok, with critical essay by Lawrence Chua. Featured naut-i series, Dream World, and HAL-O 2. Reviewed in frieze magazine.
Permanent Flux & Brussels
Solo exhibition Permanent Flux at GMT+7, Brussels, and Catherine Schubert Fine Art, Bangkok. Featured Porta-atroP I — the artist's largest sculpture to date. Participated in Unspeaking Engagements with Pous souP I & II.
New York & Singapore
Solo exhibition Compulsive Orders at Tally Beck Contemporary, New York City. Created GAP the Mind series and Irritating Irrigation installation at DOB Gallery, Bangkok.
GAP the Mind Singapore
Largest installation to date — GAP the Mind commissioned for i Light Marina Bay 2012 in Singapore. Series of large cylindrical tents made from saffron monk's robe fabric with vibrating meditation plates.
What I Don't Know That I Know
Solo exhibition What I Don't Know That I Know at H Gallery, Bangkok. Continued painting and drawing practice exploring microscopic and cosmic scales. Represented in Gentle Matter at Richard Koh Fine Arts, Singapore.
gas-p 2
Created gas-p 2 — a monumental 6-metre-tall modified concave life-cast resin sculpture. Solo at H installation. Participated in Monologue Dialogue MD3 at BACC.
Merz Maze & Big Bananas
Created major works Merz Maze 1 (1000x1000x300cm painted constructed rubbish), My Heart Is on the Right Side, GAP the Mind 3, Who's Afraid of Big Bananas, and The Chosen One.
Self-Reflective Monolith
Created Self-Reflective Monolith and Self-Reflective Tunnel series. Participated in Oscillations at Chulalongkorn University Art Center, curated by Lyno Vuth.
London Debut
Participated in Monologue Dialogue MD4 at the Koppel Project in London. Continued TransPollock series exploring dialogue with American abstract expressionism.
The Nerve That Eats Itself
Solo exhibition The Nerve That Eats Itself at Gallery VER, Bangkok, marking his debut with the gallery. Featured Monstrous Monstrance #1, TransPollock #3 [red shift, blue shift], Blissfully Ours #1, and Relational Anesthetic #1 — works that confronted illness and mortality through sculptural metaphor.
SPECTROSYNTHESIS II
Participated in SPECTROSYNTHESIS II — Exposure of Tolerance, a major international group exhibition at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC), curated by professor Apinan Poshyananda. The exhibition explored themes of diversity, tolerance, and the spectrum of human experience across Southeast Asian contemporary art.
Space of 25 Light Years
Final solo exhibition Space of 25 Light Years at JWD Art Space, Bangkok. The title referenced the vastness of interstellar space as metaphor for the interior landscape of the human body. Featured works exploring cosmic scale, microscopic biology, and the threshold between inner and outer space — a summation of the artist's lifelong philosophical inquiry.
Scientific Animism
Created Scientific Animism #2, a major new painting that synthesized his long-standing investigation of microscopic imagery, cellular structures, and spiritual resonance — finding the sacred in the scientific, the metaphysical in the biological. The work entered Gallery VER's representation of his estate.
ExoMayflower & Strawberry Fields
Continued producing significant new works including ExoMayflower — a sculptural exploration of journey and transplantation, and Strawberry Fields (Nothing Is Real) — a painting series meditating on perception and reality. Participated in UN-FORMING, a group exhibition at Gallery VER (19 Oct - 23 Nov 2024).
Final Works & The Abyss Is Calling
Completed his final paintings — The Cosmic Superstructure the JWST or the Hubble Could Never Be Able to Capture and Not A Pretty Mandala — works that reached toward the furthest limits of cosmic and interior space. Be Takerng passed away in Bangkok. Represented by Gallery VER at S.E.A. Focus, Singapore's premier showcase of Southeast Asian contemporary art during Singapore Art Week. Posthumously included in The Abyss Is Calling, a group exhibition curated by Rirkrit Tiravanija at Gallery VER (Nov 2025 - Jan 2026).
Passing & The Estate
Be Takerng Pattanopas passed away in Bangkok. The Be Takerng Art Estate was established to preserve, manage, and promote his artistic legacy — led by Brian Curtin with a dedicated team of collaborators. His final works are represented by Gallery VER, ensuring his practice continues to reach new audiences across Southeast Asia and beyond.
Flesh and Bones — ArtScience Museum
Be Takerng's work featured posthumously in Flesh and Bones: The Art of Anatomy at ArtScience Museum, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore (21 Mar – 16 Aug 2026). The major international exhibition, expanded from an original project at the Getty Research Institute, traces anatomy as a shared language of art and science — placing Be Takerng's sculptural explorations of the body's interior in dialogue with Renaissance anatomical atlases and global healing traditions.