About
Narong Tintamusik (ณรงค์ ตินตมุสิก) is an artist and curator based in Dallas, Texas. His interdisciplinary work explores personal and collective survival through the lens of his second-generation Thai-American upbringing, queer identity, Buddhist spirituality, and former career in the biological sciences. Working primarily in painting and its sculptural and conceptual iterations, Narong draws on Thai heritage and speculative futures to confront ecological collapse, overconsumption, waste colonialism, and cultural assimilation. His work asks: how can we look beyond infrastructures of material gain toward deeper modes of connection, care, and spiritual nourishment?
Born in Dallas and raised between Texas and Bangkok, Thailand, Narong was encouraged by his parents to pursue a more "practical" field, earning a biology degree with a minor in visual arts from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2014. He spent seven years working in environmental science before fully committing to his art practice. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Painting and Drawing at the University of North Texas (2022–2025).
Narong’s work has been shown nationally and internationally, including exhibitions in Chicago, New York, Canada, and Germany. His solo exhibitions include 500X Gallery, Plush Gallery, Daisha Board Gallery, Tarleton State University, and Angelina College. He is the recipient of awards such as the DeGoyler Memorial Fund (Dallas Museum of Art, 2015), Art Walk West Microgrant (2021), and the Puffin Foundation Grant (2022). He was also awarded full scholarships to attend nationally recognized craft schools, including the Penland School of Craft, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, and Pocosin Arts School of Fine Craft.
From 2019–2022, he was a member of 500X, one of Texas’s oldest artist-run spaces. As a curator, Narong centers themes of identity, queerness, diaspora, figuration, abstraction, and ecology. His recent curatorial projects include To Remember to Speak Our Mother Tongue (Goldmark Cultural Center, 2022), Human/Nature (Fort Worth Community Arts Center, 2021), and Queer Me Now: The Queer Body and Gaze (500X Gallery & The MAC, 2020). He also founded Musik, a virtual curatorial platform offering solo exhibitions to underrepresented artists through open calls and invitations (2020–2021).
A Few Artists I Admire
Felipe Baeza
Roger Ballen
Somnath Bhatt
Heather Benjamin
Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg
Allana Clarke
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Jes Fan
Anna Sew Hoy
Candace Lin
Brian Jungun
Bumin Kim
Antonia Kuo
Chyrum Lambert
Heidi Lau
Leslie Martinez
Wangechi Mutu
Toyin Ojih Odutola
Esteban Ramón Pérez
Rajni Perera
Naudline Pierre
Marigold Santos
Tschabalala Self
Arlene Shechet
Kara Walker
Cosmo Whyte