AsiaLIFE

Khin You returned to Cambodia in 2004, but it is only this month that he has his debut exhibition in the Kingdom at the French Cultural Centre. Johan Smits talks with the veteran Cambodian artist.

“I used to draw in the sand on the banks of the Mekong River,” Cambodian-born Khin You remembers from his childhood. “Later on I drew on paper and charcoal and used roots of certain vegetables and trees to extract colour.” He first learnt how to draw before he learnt how to read and write. A beautiful portrait of Khin’s parents testifies to his natural artistic talents. It is the only one of his pre-Khmer Rouge era works that has survived, thanks to his sister who managed to save it. When you study the framed piece of withered paper on which the charcoal drawing has been entrusted, it is hard to believe that this was the work of an eight-year-old. One of his uncles, a painter of Buddhist scenes in temples, initiated Khin into the art of drawing when he was still a child. Later he continued his training at fine arts schools and universities in Phnom Penh and Marseilles.

Now sixty-two, this month Khin is having his first exhibition of oil paintings in Cambodia, the country he returned to in 2004. An architect by training, he spent most of his life in different countries – France, the Sudan, Qatar and the U.K. It was during his time in Sudan – by then he was in his early thirties – that Khin first discovered his own style. His firm and expressive brush stroke is very much reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh, the artist he feels most inspired by. According to Khin, the influence on the technique itself is only minor. “His influence is mostly on my mind,” he says. Van Gogh sold only one painting in his life, but staid true to his vision despite the lack of commercial success. Khin believes that contemporary artists in Cambodia too often adapt their work according to how they think it might sell best. Some of the more established, best-selling Cambodian artists have told him that their style has been copied by other artists, who hope to increase their sales that way. Still, he recognises the economic reality of Cambodian artists.

Khin’s work predominantly consists of surrealist portraits of women. “My art tries to depict the condition of women,” he says, “conditions that sometimes are far from enviable!” One of the works that will be on display at the CCF is a dreamlike scene that depicts a woman lying on human-sized books. “She is an illiterate,” Khin says. “For her, it’s a bed not a book,” Khin explains. “Nobody has told her – not her parents, not society.” The inequality of women and their suffering runs as a strong leit motiv through most of Khin’s work, influenced by his time in the Middle East and Africa. “The inequality of women in Qatar is somehow similar to that of Cambodia, whereas the situation in Sudan is more in between that of here and the West,” he says.

Khin’s exhibition at the French Cultural Centre (CCF) is about women. “France has a long history of art. Artists have to work hard to create something new,” he says. “But at the same time it is easier to get a message across, because modern and conceptual art is well received.” However, he anticipates some of the audience in his country of birth will be surprised by his art. “The word ‘art’ has a deep meaning and is very difficult to understand, just like God and religion,” he explains. “To me reality is not art and art is not real and exact.” For him art is situated “somewhere in between reality and fantasy.”

Since Khin returned to Cambodia he has also explored the art of sculpture, assembling pieces of hardwood that have naturally been transformed into various shapes by weather, fire or termites. Although not on display at the CCF, we might be able to view them soon at his future art gallery. Khin plans to exhibit the works of his friend, the American-Khmer sculptor Chanthou Oeur who will soon move to Cambodia, at the gallery as well. With over two hundred of his own paintings to choose from, it won’t be hard to fill up the space. If it’s up to him, it won’t stop there. “I wish in the future we could have a museum of modern art in Cambodia.”

‘Imagined Portraits of Women’ runs at the French Cultural Centre from Jun. 12 to September.