Khing vase: Spring
Khing vase: Spring
Sumphat
The pikul grows along village paths and temple grounds across Thailand - a small, unassuming flower, its blossoms white, its scent carried further than you would expect from something so modest. It does not court attention. Thai culture has long associated it with grace, serenity, and a particular quality of quiet.
Rush Pleansuk chose it for that quality. The Khing Spring Vase takes the pikul as its subject and the Bunga Mas - the golden tribute tree of Thai royal ceremony - as its form. The set comprises three separate brass sculptures - one standing 48 centimetres tall, two at approximately 35 centimetres - each a tangle of slender branches rooted at the base and scattered with cast pikul blossoms. Arranged together, they form a grove. Where you place them, and how, is yours to decide.
Each branch holds a small tube: for a stem, for a candle. The brass will age. Any flowers you place here will not last. That is also the point.
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.
