Khing vase: Berry
Khing vase: Berry
Sumphat
The eggplant flower is not what anyone would call a ceremonial flower. It grows in kitchen gardens and along rural roadsides across Thailand - small, purple, unassuming, the incidental bloom of a plant grown for what comes after. It is not offered at temples. It simply grows where it grows.
Rush Pleansuk cast it in brass. The Khing Vase (Berry) takes the same form as its sibling - three separate sculptures, one standing 48 centimetres tall and two at approximately 35 centimetres, each a tangle of branching stems scattered with cast floral clusters - but with the eggplant flower in place of a more obvious choice. The Bunga Mas tradition, that ancient form of golden tribute tree, rendered in the bloom of the vegetable patch.
Arranged together, the three pieces form a grove. Each branch holds a small tube for a stem or a candle. The composition is yours to make.
Three pieces, sold as a set. Cast in brass. Exclusive to Australia at The Leopard.
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About Sumphat
Rush Pleansuk trained as an architect in Thailand and France before turning to a different kind of construction. What he builds now is not buildings but continuity - the chain of knowledge between a tradition and its next practitioner, between a forgotten technique and a contemporary object that gives it reason to survive.
Through Sumphat, Pleansuk works with more than thirteen artisan communities across Thailand, translating endangered craft practices into objects for modern life. The method begins with research — into local narratives, material intelligence, ways of making that have not yet found their contemporary form. Then, collaboration. The result is not replication but renewal: something that carries history without being trapped by it.
Alongside him, French photographer Philippe Moisan - trained in ancient arts at the École du Louvre - brings a historian's eye to the work. His images translate the same sensibility: heritage as a living thing, not a relic.
Sumphat's work has been presented through Dior, Audemars Piguet, and Aman. It is exclusive to Australia at The Leopard.
