Spirit House started with a simple frustration: there was nowhere on Koh Phangan to buy original art that meant something.
There were tourist shops. There were markets with imported prints. There were guesthouses with decorative pieces that could have come from anywhere. But there was no place that held the work of the people who actually lived here — the artists, the photographers, the makers who had chosen this island and were making things shaped by it.
Alfred and I opened Spirit House on Walking Street in 2023. The idea was straightforward: a gallery that was also a boutique, also a creative space, also somewhere you could walk in off the street and paint something without anyone asking you why. The paint tables were almost an afterthought at first. Now they might be our favourite thing about the place. Children and adults pull up a chair every single day. We have never once asked anyone what they are making.
The online store came later, because people kept asking if they could buy pieces without being on the island. The answer is yes — and every print sold online puts paint on those tables, keeps the gallery running, and goes directly back to the artists making the work.
That is what Spirit House is. A place where original art and open creativity share the same room, on an island that does something strange and good to the creative mind.
We are glad you found us.
— Ross & Alfred, Spirit House Gallery, Koh Phangan
