If you’d like to know how and what Thai Buddhist temples really contribute to the life of the common man, no answer can be more enlightening than this collection of digitally-altered surrealist pop photographs, the latest work by Kamthorn Paowattanasuk. Eighteen folk art icons of celebrated Thai monks, crudely fashioned from cement, their imperfections covered up by gold paint to make them worship-worthy, are placed on various backdrops: from your basic angels and fairies, heaven-hell, to ATM machines and monk’s begging bowls, in order to facilitate pleas for divine help with contemporary lusts and desires—for wealth, job promotion, love and sexual charisma.

Hallucinatory and mesmerising, hysterical and incisive, the visions of ‘Disco Buddha’ are a comical summation of rising public criticisms of Thai Buddhist monasteries today. They are the follow-up act to ‘Holy Alloy, Pearly Gates’ of 2008, Kamthorn’s photographs of the real environs, bling decorations and atmosphere of real temples on Bangkok’s outskirts.