Wes Kroninger
There wasn’t a specific moment when Soutchay Soungpradith knew he was interested in creating art.
“It’s always been a part of me,” the Westerville resident says.
His talent extends from visual to auditory; he has played guitar for just about as long as he has been drawing and painting. In addition to playing guitar and singing, Soungpradith can play bass guitar, drums and piano.
Recently, his art gave him the opportunity to meet one of his musical heroes. For Promowest Productions’ 30th anniversary contest, Soungpradith was one of four artists selected for his work: an acrylic painting inspired by Carlos Santana, who was visiting Columbus on his tour. He ended up meeting Santana and giving him his painting. The guitarist had a gift for him in return: a signed guitar. Soungpradith ended up winning the contest, along with three other artists. A banner of the painting now hangs on the side of A&R Music Bar.
“If you just keep doing what you love, sometimes stuff like that happens,” Soungpradith says.
Born in Laos in southeast Asia, Soungpradith moved to the U.S. when he was three years old. His father, Bounlom, who died in 1986, and mother, Phady, moved Soungpradith and his three older brothers and younger sister to Coshocton. Soungpradith also had a brother and sister who died in Laos. Due to communism and war, the family had spent some time in refugee camps in the Philippines and Thailand.
“I think my father wanted to get us out of the country and give us a better life here,” he says.
In May 1981, the family came to the U.S. with a sponsorship from Grace United Methodist Church.
When he was young, others noticed Soungpradith’s talent. His teachers often asked him to create posters, and his friends asked him to draw them tattoo designs.
“As far as I can remember, I was always drawing,” he says.
After graduating from Coshocton High School in 1996, he received a scholarship to the Columbus College of Art and Design. He only stayed for about a year. Soungpradith was in a long-distance relationship with a girlfriend in Coshocton. He was also looking to pursue music professionally.
“At that that time in my life, that’s what I really wanted to do,” Soungpradith says.
Back then, Soungpradith was a member of a band called Outlet, playing lead guitar. For a few years, he focused on music instead of painting. In 2006, he was laid off from a full-time job at The Limited’s receiving department. The extra time on his hands – along with his wife, Vicki’s, first pregnancy – motivated him to pick up his paintbrush again.
For the last three years, Soungpradith has been the guitarist and singer for a three-piece band called Dead Mans Dew that includes drums and bass guitar. The trio has a hard rock, psychedelic, blues sound. The band’s first show was in Hebron. The band also performed at A&R Bar for a private Christmas party. Eventually, the band would like to play at the LC Pavilion indoor venue and Newport Music Hall.
Growing up, Soungpradith listened to Led Zeppelin, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Pink Floyd and the Doors. The bands have influenced him in a big way, and he’s always gravitated to bluesy, funky rock. Still, he doesn’t want to be confined to a particular musical genre or sound.
“I’m always exploring and trying to grow,” he says.
He feels similarly about his art; while Soungpradith could describe his style as fantasy or imaginative realism, he shies away from categorizing his work.
“I’m always evolving, not just with my art, but in my life,” he says.
Soungpradith primarily works with oil on canvas or masonite. Depending on his time frame, he might use acrylic, since it dries faster than oil. Sometimes he will layer oil on top of acrylic. Depending on a piece’s size and detail, he might take anywhere from a week to a few months to finish a painting.
Typically he begins with a thumbnail sketch, creating a bigger drawing after he takes a photo of his subject for reference. Sometimes he will photograph models he creates out of clay to see how lighting hits different areas. Inspired by attending a CCAD lecture by James Gurney, artist and author of the illustrated children’s book series Dinotopia, Soungpradith has been building models as part of his prep work for about five to six years.
“It’s hard to visualize some things. So building maquettes helps me make the painting look more realistic,” he says.
Part of his prep work also includes preparing his canvas by sanding the surface and gessoing it – adding a primer to the canvas so the paint better adheres to it. After creating his final drawing, he draws with pencil right onto the board, shading a bit in areas to bring out the form.
“You get more of a natural look,” he says.
For his most recent piece, Soungpradith built on his inspiration of temptation and good and evil with his painting titled Tempting Tigers. He finished it in September after working on it on and off for a year.
“I just couldn’t figure it out,” he says.
Soungpradith got some recognition for a painting he completed for a fundraiser that benefited an artist’s wife who had breast cancer. The founder of IlluXCon, an annual art show and symposium for imaginative realism, saw Soungpradith’s work online and encouraged him to attend the gathering.
It was at a recent IlluXCon that Soungpradith met the woman who would become the subject of Tempting Tigers.
Soungpradith has done some freelance painting and has had some of his work in galleries in group shows. The fantasy genre has been a good market for the artist, and IlluXCon helps him gain recognition. Soungpradith’s work has been included in ImagineFX, Dungeons and Dragons Game Playing Supplement, Spectrum 19 and 20 and Infected by Art Volume 2.
When he’s not creating music or art, Soungpradith has another job: that of a stay-at-home dad. Though he and Vicki attended high school together, they didn’t start dating until later. They married in 2006, and the couple has two daughters, Scarlett, 4, and Lia, 7 months.
“Those two are my masterpieces,” he says. “I will never create a piece, a painting, that outshines those guys.”
Sarah Sole is an assistant editor. Feedback welcome at hbealer@cityscenecolumbus.com.
