The love for art of Sawai Chinnawong of Payap University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, began when he was he child while he watched old men painting on a Buddhist temple wall. His interest in art persisted into adulthood. He studied art in a vocational school in Bangkok, Thailand. It was at this time that Sawai became a Christian. He says that a missionary was witnessing on the street one day, and soon after he began to study the Bible every day after art class. After completing his art studies, Sawai studied at the McGilvary Faculty of Theology at Payap University in Chiang Mai. He was deeply influenced by a series of lectures on the history of Christian Art given there in 1984 by artist and professor Nalini Jayasuriya. He began creating liturgical art while attending seminary and designed the artwork for the chapel there. Today his art is appreciated in many places for its portrayal of Christian themes through a Thai graphic idiom that is inspired by Thai culture.