During an artist residency in New South Wales, Australia, Noppanan observed the metamorphosis of light as it danced across the majestic wilderness of Wollemi National Park over the course of each day. There, the light possessed qualities he had not seen anywhere else and illuminated our profound connection to nature, becoming sacred to him from then on. 

From the light of foreign lands, an awakening of rapturous memories: the glow of candles and lanterns lit with his mother and grandmother on the eve of the full moon during the Yi Peng festival, a Lanna tradition; candles lit in offering to Phra Ratanatrai (The Triple Gem of Buddhism), or the spirits of his ancestors, or resident spirits of the land and sacred objects; and simply, light seeping through a canopy of leaves and into the shade underneath in different places. 

Though the sanctity of light has been challenged by the brilliance of human intellect, which has spawned myriad sources of artificial light, Noppanan’s rapture and existential awe in the presence of its sublime power have not waned. Instead, he has found that light is a metaphor for human consciousness as it has struggled to escape the darkness of ignorance, to varying degrees of success, throughout civilizations from antiquity to the present.