An incredible journey

Childhood

When I was a young kid, my dream was to work in a Bangkok factory making shirts, which was then known as a sweatshop. I told this to my husband, and he said are you mad. I told him you try standing in a rice field in the boiling sun for 8 hours, a day knee-deep in water with snakes, rats, and God knows what else is swimming around your legs.

I left school at 12 to work in the rice fields; at 13, I worked in a sweat factory in Bangkok making shirts; 14 I drove a pick-up truck seven days a week, 14 hours a day, selling vegetables. At 22, I had my own business selling pickup trucks. It was pure chance that a cheeky little drawing I did later in life changed my life forever and got me into art and the start of an incredible journey that started in 2012.

Art School in Bangkok

To cut a long story short, my partner bought me a load of art materials, and I spent the evenings drawing and painting with oils and watercolours. When I had quite a collection, my partner took them to a hotel owner he knew in Koh Samui, an artist who went to the top art school in Bangkok.

He kept them for a while, and when he gave them back, he said, ‘Ta has got talent, raw talent but talent; he also said never let Ta anywhere near an art school. They will knock all that talent out of her. He also said If Ta works hard and paints every day, one day, she will have her own exhibition.

I worked extremely hard in the back of a gallery, learning from a couple of (lazy) but great artists.  Of course, I didn’t get paid for it more the other way around), but it was a brilliant experience.

First Exhibitions

About four years later, I had an exhibition, and many people turned up; there was a big cocktail party on the first night with many people dressed up and wanting to talk about my work. I had to make a speech and thank everyone. Don’t forget I’m Thai, and these were all Westerners. I’d never done anything like that before. My English is not bad but far from perfect, but they were very kind to me.

I put on a little black dress and red lipstick and made the most of it; I loved it, not so much the attention but the fact that people I’d never met before liked my work and wanted to talk to me about it.

I was standing on the stage looking at all those people and spotted my partner’s face. He had tears running down his cheeks. He was so proud of me. Then, at that moment, I knew that, during those last four years, he believed in me, and that made me believe in myself; I think I finally realised then that I was an artist.

The Kick-off

I opened my studio/gallery and did well selling to tourists, but it was hard work and long hours, so I decided to move to the mainland and concentrate on selling online. 

I sold many paintings for a bit of money with eBay, but it was a good learning experience. In 2014, I was invited to join Artfinder, which I did, but I didn’t do much with it until 2016, when I sold my first painting online with Saatchi Art for $650, and after I stopped dancing around the room, I thought this online business could be interesting. 

In January 2018, Artfinder tipped me as one to watch and invest in. It went crazy, and it’s been crazy ever since. I then had a phone call from Singulart in Paris asking if I was interested in joining them and for the last 3 years I have been in their top 10 best selling artists list and I have sent my work to 67 countries. 

How my Eggs came about.

I wanted something to change my world, a painting that would make that happen. I wanted something I’d never seen before in the art world. I used to sit for hours late at night thinking about what to paint to make that change.

It was Egg lady wearing a scarf that made that change.

I used to fry eggs every day for my husband, and one day, I thought that would make a nice face. And I remembered my school days; when I was a kid at school, we would have to take our lunch box as there were no kitchen or cooking facilities. When the dinner bell rang, we sat on the floor to eat lunch.

Almost every day, I had a fried egg on rice, and the other kids would say, ‘Ta fried egg again, you will start looking like a fried egg’. 

I pleaded with my sister to have something different, but we had many chickens and many eggs, so it was always fried egg on rice.

When my husband first saw Egg Lady, he said Ta, you’ve gone mad; nobody will buy that, later that morning, I put it on sale, and it sold within 10 minutes, and I could have sold it ten times more. Now my Egg paintings are on the wall worldwide.

Egg Island, the book

I had the idea for a book floating around my head for a while, and I started writing in early 2023. On 02 / 10 / 2023, I signed a book contract for my manuscript Egg Island. My book is now available to buy worldwide.

Egg Island is full of characters and strange things, but do not be alarmed because it’s normal here. Apart from the Egg people, dolphins, including a giant one as big as a ship and one even bigger asleep at the bottom of the sea. Baboons who think they own the place; firebugs as big as coconuts who light up the village; giant turtles who protect the kids when swimming; coconut crabs, bright orange with cat-like habits who like their belly scratched; little bees with big eyes always sharing honey and mushrooms that produce eggs.

The second book is underway.

Greetings,
Ta Byrne