• Society

Tomorrow’s Archives: a Cambodian Artist Immortalizes Today’s Artists in Paintings 

• By Michelle Vachon
• March 27, 2024 2:20 PM

PHNOM PENH — If in decades to come people were to ask what happened in the arts in Cambodia in the 2000s and 2010s, who were the artists who gave the country its identity on the international art stage, who expressed what was happening in Cambodia entering the 21th century with some wounds not yet healed but great hopes for the future, looking at Meas Sokhorn’s paintings currently shown in Phnom Penh would tell them just that. 

His series “Broken Lament” at the gallery Silapak Trotchaek Pneik, or STP, at YK Art House in Phnom Penh features the artists who express on canvas, in sculptures or installations that Cambodia was and is a vibrant country today. That, as their ancestors did 1,000 years ago at Angkor when they sculpted in stone scenes of their time, they have been putting on canvas and in sculptures the Cambodia of today with the challenges people face. 

In Sokhorn’s paintings, some artists are shown laughing together, filled with the vitality and enthusiasm they reflect in their works. Most of the artists who have marked the art scene since the 2000s are featured, a few shown upside down, mixed with images suggesting what may have influenced their journey. All this presented with ebullience, the paintings filled with life and energy as the work of Sokhorn usually is, whether he builds an installation or paints on canvas. 

Caption: Painting by Meas Sokhorn entitled “The Levitated Pallet.” Photo: STP Cambodia (Menghak Kieng) 

This artist born in 1977 actually studied interior design at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh. Dana Langlois, who exhibited several of his installations at Java Café in Phnom Penh over the years, said on the exhibition opening night that Sokhorn “has consistently challenged convention and the status quo. His work was groundbreaking in Cambodia at a time when few artists explored installation art.

“He once constructed a black tornado from wood paneling and barbed wire that spiraled up to the ceiling of the gallery,” she said. “He created stickers with the words ‘Do start by writing and don’t forget about art’ scrawled in Khmer calligraphy, then posted them around the city.” Sokhorn would win the Signature Art Prize at the Singapore Art Museum in the 2010s, and worked on installations that were exhibited in Los Angeles in United States and Melbourne in Australia.  

In addition to featuring today’s major artists—whether little or well known by the public—in his paintings on display at the STP gallery, Sokhorn included Kor Borin of the French Institute in Phnom Phen who, for decades, has worked with Cambodia’s artists exhibiting at the institute. He also included Reaksmey Yean who set up the STP gallery and curates the exhibitions. 

Painting by Meas Sokhorn entitled “The Forgotten Chalks.” Photo: STP Cambodia (Menghak Kieng) 2024

As Sokhorn explained in an email interview, when he started painting this series of works, he had in mind these French cafes in Paris where artists would meet and discuss art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. So, he imagined today’s Cambodian artists doing this at the café of YK Art House where the STP gallery is located, he said, “serving as a hub for gathering together, discussing new ideas, and watching the spectacle of changing life and landscape in front of and around them.”

This series of paintings is a work in progress, Sokhorn said. “[In this] first phase of portraying Cambodian artists…I painted the people I have remained in contact with…I will continue to paint other Cambodian artists…and hopefully, I can paint them all.” 

The exhibition at the Silapak Trotchaek Pneik (STP) gallery, which is located at 13 A Street 830 off Sothearos Boulevard, runs through April 16. 

For more information: https://www.facebook.com/STPCambodia 

Painting by Meas Sokhorn entitled “The Riddle Wells.” Photo: STP Cambodia (Menghak Kieng) 2024