Mit Jai Inn

Perhaps the best-known artist in Thailand is one the rest of the world has barely heard of. The day before visiting the studio of Mit Jai Inn, I visited MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, one of the most stimulating private institutions not only in Chiang Mai but in all of Southeast Asia. As I explored the permanent and temporary exhibitions, I kept coming across Mit’s name—whether it was an earlier piece that the museum’s owners, Eric Bunnag Booth and his parents, had acquired back in the 1990s, or acknowledgments to him in the wall text of other artists’ work. This only piqued my desire to meet the artist, who, despite being low-profile, has made an important impact on the Thai art scene.

Driving to Mit’s studio is not straightforward. My taxi driver zigzagged through a variety of villages in the outskirts of Chiang Mai—Northern Thailand’s largest city, known for its cultural