Kata-Karon, Phuket
The studio is a real place, and the painters sign their work.
The artist
Samran Thongkam
Known as Bao · 99 Gallery Phuket · Kata-Karon
Bao has painted in Kata-Karon for thirty years. The studio — 99 Gallery Phuket — is where the work is made and where it stays until it sells: roughly a thousand original canvases, of which only about a hundred and twenty have ever been photographed and put online. The rest have never left the building.
The range is wider than any one room needs. Gilded gong and mandala forms built up in relief. Buddha heads in embossed line under gold and silver leaf. Loose, heavy-brushed oils of monks, elephants, bulls and figures. Banana-leaf studies in gold on teal. It is not a house style so much as three decades of working painters following what interested them that year.
All the work comes through Bao. He does not paint alone — a canvas may be his own or painted by a member of his family at the studio, and each signs their own work. Look along the bottom edge and the signature changes from piece to piece.
Everything is an original. One of one, signed, paint on canvas. Nothing on this site is a print, a giclée, a reproduction or a licensed image, and nothing is machine-finished. When a piece sells it is gone; the nearest thing available afterwards is a companion work from the same studio.
The technique
Built up, not brushed on.
- Embossed line
Raised line work applied in relief before any colour goes down, so the surface carries an actual edge you can feel — closest in feel to antique Thai lacquer and repoussé metalwork.
- Gold & silver leaf
Leaf laid over the raised ground. Under warm light it moves as you cross the room, which is why these pieces work in lobbies and restaurants far better than they photograph.
- Gong & mandala forms
The circular works read as bronze gongs and temple discs — verdigris and patina over gold, usually on a copper-red or near-black ground.
- Oil, acrylic, mixed
The figurative and animal work is mostly oil, brushed heavily and left textured. The gilded and embossed work is acrylic. A number of pieces are both.
We are not the artist and we do not pretend to be. We are the reason his work can arrive in a UK hotel framed, hung and correctly invoiced.
Our side of it
Studio Ninety-Nine is a UK company. We buy directly from the studio, import the work ourselves, frame it here, deliver it and hang it. There is no agent in the middle and no second margin hidden in the freight.
The name is a nod to his. 99 Gallery Phuket is Bao's own — inventing something that implied the work started with us seemed the worse option of the two.
We hold no inventory. A piece stays on Bao's studio wall until someone orders it, which is why the catalogue is honest about what has sold and why we would rather tell you a lead time than promise same-week delivery.
Why we name him
A lot of importers do not. They photograph the work, strip the provenance and sell it as house-branded "Asian art". We think that is both worse business and worse manners. Buyers reverse-image-search; being open about the source reads as professional, and being evasive about it ends trade conversations. The artwork on this site is used with the artist's written permission, and the artist is credited on every listing.