Kaocrew “Yah” Kakabutra
b. 1989, Thailand ∙ CE artist since 2011
Kaocrew “Yah” Kakabutra joined the Creativity Explored studio in 2011 after moving from Thailand to the US in 1997. Kakabutra communicates through her artworks and her loving, kind, and sociable personality.
Initially making small-scale works on paper, her mark making is as diverse as the media with which she uses. Repeated circular forms are made with colored pencil over a background mixture of acrylic and pastel. Alternately, Kakabutra delicately washes watercolors in flowing pastel shades.
Her willingness to experiment has led Kakabutra to projects that would overwhelm a less confident artist. An experimentalist by nature, Kakabutra’s practice has literally expanded to massive color-rich canvases with varying types of marks created by applying paint with sticks, whips, and brushes of many sizes.
Moving quickly from a small scale to an immense scale, her bigger projects include an astonishingly beautiful abstract paintings that was featured in in a project at Cisco Home. Kakabutra’s story and method was featured in our Art Changes Lives 2019 video.
Select Exhibitions & Projects
2020
Of Here From There | De Aquí Desde Allá, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
2017
Flying Like a Rock, Pacific Northwest College of Art Center for Art and Contemporary Culture, Portland, OR
Black White, Creativity Explored, San Francisco, CA
2016
Pass Away - Dia de los Muertos Altar, Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, CA
Natural History, Creativity Explored Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Ripe, Creativity Explored Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2015
Dance Party! Creativity Explored, San Francisco, CA
Forte, Creativity Explored, San Francisco, CA
Super Contemporary, Creativity Explored, San Francisco, CA
2014
StereoTYPE, Creativity Explored, San Francisco, CA
2013
For the Birds, Creativity Explored, San Francisco, CA
Space, Creativity Explored, San Francisco, CA
2012
Fabulous, Creativity Explored, San Francisco, CA
ArtPadSF, Phoenix Hotel, San Francisco, CA
Structure, Creativity Explored, San Francisco, CA
