Manit’s oeuvre goes well beyond the Pink Man, though, including directing the photography of Ing K’s Shakespeare Must Die, preserving the works of Thailand’s forgotten photographers and continuing to express himself through studio photography. Here, we speak to him as he exhibits a new series of nudes, Blue, which feels like his rawest and most intimate work in a long time.

Is this the first time you've done nudes?

This is the second time. I did “Obscene” in 2012. It was criticizing the political situation in Thailand [through grotesque imagery of a naked woman representing Thailand’s democracy].

But this is very different.

This is more introverted. The other one was more extroverted. After I spoke about how I felt, the situation didn’t change. Many people tried to make things move or get better but nobody listens to anyone. Thailand is so divided, whatever your idea, if you input the society it gets twisted and you are put into one camp. Either your ideas are pro-red or pro-yellow.

This is what the pictures express?

You cannot do anything. The bodies are floating, they feel uncomfortable, like you’ve been twisted. It shows how, whatever you say, people will take you the wrong way, instead of looking at the good intention, what we try to do. The pictures are about this situation.

How did you shoot it?

In my studio, with just one light. Actually, the original background is red and the skin tones are normal. And then, when we printed it and I could not get the feeling I wanted. We had to manipulate the image get the color to deliver the feelings that I have. So we found a way to turn it to blue. Most of the exhibition is blue, but a few pieces are red, made with a different model and different film--black and white. All blue would have been boring. There are 22 pieces altogether.

Opening March 13 at Adler Subhashok Gallery Bangkok, 160/3 Sukhumvit Soi 33. 02662-0299. BTS Phrom Phong.