AsiaLIFE

After a long dormant period, the past few years have seen steady growth in the development of Cambodian visual contemporary art. The Kingdom not only attracts international artists from different corners of the world but its own sons and daughters are increasingly entering the international art community. Johan Smits talked to some of Cambodia’s globetrotting creative minds – both Khmers and expats – about their international experiences, their work and the Cambodian art scene.

“There is no difference in being an artist in a developing country from being an artist anywhere else,” says Nicolas Grey. “There are some practical differences though, things like the cost of living, materials, framing, etc, which can lend any artist more freedom.” Nicolas has been an artist on and off for the past 20 years. His work is mainly drawings with pen and ink and some mixed media. His style is very much influenced by his background as a self-confessed “underground comic artist.” 

The self-taught Brit thinks the art community in Cambodia is more enjoyable, intimate and accessible than in his native London, which he finds somewhat pretentious and alienating. “I feel Cambodia is a great place to be an artist,” he claims. “It’s a young culture and has many possibilities.”

Italian-born Margherita del Balzo also loves being an artist in Cambodia. She first came here in 2004. Although she has worked with different art media, like Nicolas, she concentrates on drawing. “The country inspires me in many different ways,” she says. “Living far from my country in different cultures enriches my experiences and develops my critical thinking. I owe Africa and Asia a lot for that.”

Does that mean that travelling to other countries is a must for an artist to develop herself? Not so for Margherita who finds that there are as many kinds of artists as there are kinds of lives. “I have artist friends in Europe that did not move – they travelled only in their imagination and with intelligence,” she says. “Being an artist is living in an intense way wherever you are.”

Cambodian Artists Overseas

Cambodian contemporary artists who have been abroad, seem unanimous in believing that travel has broadened their minds and inspired their art. Vollak Kong graduated from RUFA (Royal University of Fine Arts) in 2006 where he studied sculpture. Although he predominantly produces drawings and paintings, he had some sculptures exhibited in Sri Lanka last year.

“I think Cambodian contemporary art is reaching the same level as foreign contemporary art but Cambodian artists need more exposure,” he says. According to Vollak they need more opportunity to travel and expose themselves to foreign contemporary art. “At the moment they often can only do this through the internet,” he says.

To Leang Seckon, going abroad has certainly boosted his self-confidence. After he finished studying art and decoration at RUFA, aged 28, he didn’t really feel that he was ready. For one year he joined a performance group as a singer before he started painting. His first public show at Java Café and Gallery in 2002 proved a great success. It helped to increase his self-confidence but it was his first exhibition abroad, a year later in the U.S., that made him really believe in himself. This exhibition owed a lot to an American artist friend, who saw Seckon’s work at Java and was instrumental in making the American exhibition happen. Seckon is indebted to him for more than just this.

“I learned a lot from his way of thinking and his worldview, which was more important to me than any technical knowledge,” he says about his American artist-friend. “I learned a lot about community, sharing and collaboration,” he says. Since then his art has been shown in Singapore, Hong Kong, Norway, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and Austria. “Cambodian contemporary art only started to emerge a few years ago,” he says. “But I think it has a bright future ahead.”
 
Cambodian Art Scene

So does that indicate that the Cambodian art market is booming? According to Margherita it is certainly progressing thanks to new galleries and art spaces, but it is not a real Cambodian market because Cambodians do not buy art. “They prefer to invest in things that are easier to understand,” she says.

Margherita believes there will be a real Cambodian art market when Cambodians show their work abroad in quality galleries, and when Cambodians buy art from their own country. “As long as ‘foreign art amateurs’ are the ones promoting local art, it will stay a local folkloristic event, not a cultural one,” she says. Despite this, she believes some Cambodian artists have reached a high level of work. “I am thinking of Sopheap Pich and Linda Saphan,” she says. “They have shows in other parts of Asia and are recognised worldwide.”

Art of Survival

The upcoming travelling exhibition, ‘The Art of Survival,’ initially conceived of in 2007 by Nico Mesterharm and Lydia Parusol of Meta House, might be just the right initiative to help Cambodian artists establish themselves overseas. “This group exhibition will be the first ever world-class Cambodian contemporary art exhibition to be shown in other countries,” says Bradford Edwards, another foreign artist working in Cambodia. Bradford has an ongoing supportive role as co-curator, catalogue art director and project manager for the project. It will have a comprehensive international-quality catalogue. “Another first for the Cambodian art community,” he claims.

Describing himself as “a fairly typical ‘mixed-media-anything-goes-any-scale-needed’ contemporary artist,” he divides his time between Phnom Penh, Vietnam and Santa Barbara, California. In these places he has established a series of what he calls “migrant studios” where he makes artwork for pending exhibitions.
He believes ‘The Art of Survival’ exhibition is a unique situation for most of the Khmer artists who have never shown abroad or had much contact with the wider art world, outside Cambodia.

“It has been fascinating and wonderful to see Khmer master artists interact and exchange ideas with the younger emerging artists,” he says. “For the further development of the Khmer art community, the value of this kind of personal contact between trans-generational artists cannot be overestimated.”

International Acclaim

Forty-seven year-old Vannara Soeung is one of the Cambodian artists participating in “The Art of Survival” project. He studied for seven years at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and before that, in the early 1980s, at Phnom Penh’s RUFA where he is now a lecturer in painting at the Faculty of Plastic Arts. His art medium is mainly abstract paintings in oil and acrylic, but also installations.

Vannara’s first public exhibition abroad was in Malaysia in 1999 where his work, about old Khmer music instruments, was shown at the Asian Arts Awards. Three years later he received the regional award in Indonesia. He too believes that his art has benefited from travel. “After I come back from travelling I feel enriched,” he says. “Some elements of what I saw I may then put into my work.” Although he has received critical acclaim abroad, Vannara says that on the domestic front the journey has proved more difficult.

“For Cambodian people, my paintings are too abstract,” he says. “Only foreigners buy this kind of art.” At his first exhibition at Reyum Gallery in 1998, his friends criticised him because his paintings “were too close to the European style,” he recalls. However, he  still feels motivated because of the positive feedback and encouragement from foreigners.

The Hungry Young Artist

Encouragement is exactly what the 26 year-old Sophon Phe is looking for. His little studio is located on the outskirts of Phnom Penh along a bumpy dirt road that is too narrow to let cars pass. The very modest space also doubles up as his living quarters. When the wind blows in the wrong direction, he can smell the nearby public rubbish dump.

Originally from Kampong Thom, Sophon studied at the Reyum Art School for five years before starting his artistic endeavours in 2006. He recently came back from Shanghai where he had his first exhibition outside of Cambodia. The young artist uses different media including drawings, sculptures, abstract and traditional paintings and installations. Sophon is also a dancer who has performed in the U.S. and Mexico. He thinks that the Cambodian contemporary art scene is slowly developing but there’s insufficient interest yet. “More help is needed for artists, not just in monetary terms, but especially moral support,” he says. “There’s not enough understanding and appreciation of art.”

Sophon thinks that the presence of foreign artists in Cambodia is great. To him, it’s all about sharing different cultures. “We need to share with Thais, with Vietnamese, to understand each other better,” he says. “We have to keep in touch, keep contact, so that we’re not interested in fighting.”  In a couple of months, some of his sculptures will be exhibited at a gallery in Hong Kong. He’s also eyeing the possibility of travelling to Taiwan to take part in a dance performance.

For his sculptures, Sophon often likes to use day-to-day Khmer utensils such as metal and clay pots, spoons, nails, wine bottles and so on, which he then transforms into a themed unity. And as far as Sophon is concerned, Cambodia is the ideal place for picking up interesting objects. “You still need the idea, the concept, but there’s easy access to materials. We have a lot of rubbish that can be recycled into materials for my sculptures,” he says.

Recycling Art

Recycling is also the order of the day for Charlotte Venet who collects sea objects from the beach and recycled goods to use for her sculptures. “I love recycling things, finding new meaning to objects that are thrown away,” she says. Like Nicolas Grey, Charlotte is self-taught. She started creating art in 2003, after 25 years of working in television. Using all sorts of sea objects that she scavenges on the beaches in Kep and Sihanoukville, Charlotte attaches them to empty containers and jerry cans, transforming the objects into masks.

She thinks that the many years she worked with African subjects for French TV might have rubbed off on her art. “When I exhibited in 2004 in France, in the popular Barbès district in Paris, there were many Africans who thought that I was African too and were surprised when they found out that I wasn’t,” she laughs. In 2007 she participated in the group exhibition “Mean rup mean tuk”, organised by Linda Saphan at the Ministry of Culture’s Department of Plastic Arts. That same year she also had a show at Water Lily in Street 240. Charlotte noticed during these shows that young Khmer women especially were intrigued by what they saw. “It sometimes shocked them,” she recalls.

Cinderella of Cambodian Photography

Charlotte is not alone in shocking people. Moniroth “Chiart” Chan is a 28-year-old Cambodian from Phnom Penh who started learning art photography in 2006 when the late Welsh Magnum-photographer Philip Jones Griffiths put her into a workshop in Siem Reap. That was her first contact with photography, subsequently she also benefited from a workshop from another British photographer, Nathan Horton.
One of Chiart’s first projects, called “Cinderella”, was a series of transformation portrait pictures of Cambodian street children that showed, through dress, the transformation from an outcast street child to a Cinderella princess.

“When I, as a Cambodian woman, go and take pictures of other Cambodians, it’s quite difficult,” she explains. “More difficult than for foreigners, because it is expected of a foreign woman – they think she’s a tourist and it’s alright – but Cambodian women are not supposed to do that.” As a Cambodian female photographer, she always has a lot of explaining to do. She finds that by the time she’s gone through this rigmarole the moment has often gone.

Chiart has participated in the Angkor Photo Festivals of 2006 and 2007 through workshops and slide shows. More recently her work was on display at “La Bodega” where, she claims, she was the only participating Cambodian woman. That event was organised by the photo agency Melon Rouge as part for the Phnom Penh Photo Festival. Her work was also shown at the recent International Festival of Photography in Bangladesh alongside 27 other participating Cambodian photographers.

“To me photography is not about making a living but is art for art’s sake,” Chiart says. She also hopes that she’s helping to give Cambodia more exposure to the wider world. “I think it’s good that I can do this, both as a Cambodian and as a woman.”

Future Direction

Would there be any role for the government to help put Cambodia on the world map of contemporary art? Bradford feels this is hardly high on its list of priorities. “With the city of Phnom Penh currently struggling to adequately deal with flooding, housing and medical care, I doubt that they [the government] will be able to fund artistic cultural activity any time soon,” he says.

Margherita sees things differently. “The government should develop art training, encourage exchanges with other countries with scholarships, invite artists from Asia to have exhibitions in official places in Cambodia, and buy local art to develop the market and push artists to create,” she says. Nicolas too thinks that the government could buy and house a permanent collection of Cambodian contemporary art. “Otherwise there is a danger that it will all wind up in foreign hands,” he says. He thinks that the evolution of Cambodian art will depend on the freedom given to the artists to show what they want. “I personally feel an artist has no responsibility to the public and should exist outside of the opinion of the society he finds himself in,” he claims. “But the fact is that, to be able to show your work and make a living, you need to be aware of the cultural and political sensitivities of the place you find yourself.”

Nicolas Grey’s work will be on display at Java Café and Gallery in October.
Margherita del Balzo’s work is currently showing at Le Lezard Bleu on Street 240.
Leang Seckon’s next show in Cambodia will be at the Bophana Centre in Phnom Penh as part of a group exhibition in early April.