Queensland Art Gallery - Queensland Government

Svay Ken
Painting from life
Svay Ken
Cambodia 1933–2008
One who is rich but neither feeds nor looks after one’s
parents is subject to ruin (from ‘Sharing knowledge’
series) 2008
Oil on canvas / 80 x 100.2cm
One who is rich and has abundant food but hides
delicious food for himself is subject to ruin (from
‘Sharing knowledge’ series) 2008
Oil on canvas / 79.5 x 99.8cm
Purchased 2008. The Queensland Government’s
Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection:
Queensland Art Gallery
Svay Ken’s powerfully honest and vivid observations of daily life forged
a new path for Cambodian contemporary art, in which self-expression
and personal history merge with the Khmer artisan tradition of the
cheang salapak gor, or worker–artist. 1 His subjects include still lifes,
portraits, moral allegories and everyday scenes, often drawn from
memory and photographs. During his 15-year painting career, Svay
was internationally renowned as one of the few Cambodian artists
to have openly depicted life under Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime
(1975–79); in 2000–01, he painted a significant 128-canvas cycle
tracing his wife’s life, from birth to her death from cancer — in the
process encompassing 60 years of modern Cambodian history. Before
his own death in 2008, Svay completed a final series of paintings
entitled ‘Sharing knowledge’, a selection of which is featured in APT6.
Svay Ken was born in 1933 into a family of farmers and temple painters
in the southern province of Takeo. He was sent to a monastery as a
youth, where he studied Buddhist scriptures and philosophy, as well
as the Khmer alphabet. As a young man he moved to Phnom Penh,
and worked as a porter at the prestigious Hotel Le Royal until he and
his family were forced out of the city in 1975, under Pol Pot’s Maoinfluenced
regime, to work as rural labourers. The family survived but
were separated, and did not reunite until four years later, following the
Khmer Rouge’s defeat by the Vietnamese army, when Svay returned to
Phnom Penh and resumed work at the hotel, remaining there until his
retirement in 1993.
To continue supporting his family, Svay Ken began painting
shortly before his retirement, at first selling works to hotel guests.
Although self-taught, he quickly gained local attention, and his
first exhibition was held at the New Art Gallery in Phnom Penh in
1994. He subsequently began showing regularly in Cambodia and
internationally, and became a role model for younger artists. With
the destruction of much Khmer culture during the Pol Pot era, the
visual arts in Cambodia was, and still is, largely comprised of slick
landscapes and traditional imagery produced for the tourist market.
Svay Ken’s paintings differ markedly, using raw, direct brushwork and
an intuitive palette to depict quotidian experience, even under harsh
circumstances. His Khmer Rouge period paintings, for example, include
scenes of violence and warfare, but also of people cooking, eating and
working. These recollections are unique and significant; as so much
individual and collective memory was lost, the era remains largely
unrepresented, particularly from a local perspective. Svay once stated:
I don’t want people to forget how life was. I make my paintings so
that future generations can ponder the question: ‘How was life then
and how is life now?’ 2
The ‘Sharing knowledge’ series was also conceived as a message
for the future. It illustrates Buddhist religious and moral statements,
offering guidance to the young for living a good and honest life.
The works reflect Svay’s early temple education and lifelong ethos,
and indicate his concern with the decline of morals and tradition
in contemporary Cambodian society. They warn against greed,
selfishness, and the neglect of parents and those in need, as well as
affirming the importance of respecting elders. As the artist has said:
I didn’t choose to share many lessons on prosperity. I want the young
people to know more the causes of self-ruin. Sometimes one’s nature
is good, but one commits sins absentmindedly. 3
Svay Ken’s selected statements are painted in a flat, structured format
evoking traditional temple murals. The elaborate Khmer script forms
a distinctive and central feature of each work, and the images are
comprised of group portraits and tableaux. Set against monochromatic
backgrounds of dark greens and blacks — and, in one startling work,
sickly yellow — the paintings communicate the artist’s moral advice
directly and assertively. While located in time-honoured religious
teachings, they are also grounded in contemporary life; a recurrent
theme is the growth of a wealthy urban middle class in Phnom Penh,
who often come from farming families and increasingly leave their
poorer rural relatives behind. As with all of Svay’s paintings, the
apparent simplicity and immediacy of the ‘Sharing knowledge’ series
is underpinned by keen observation, a deep understanding of the
function of painting in Cambodian society, and a belief in the role of
the artist as witness and storyteller.
Russell Storer
Endnotes
1 Erin Gleeson, ‘Where I work: Svay Ken’, Art Asia Pacific, no.59, July–August 2008,
p.172.
2 Svay Ken, quoted in Erin Gleeson, ‘Svay Ken: Home and country’, Art Asia Pacific,
no.46, fall 2005, p.61.
3 Svay Ken, ‘Artist’s statement’, in Svay Ken: Sharing Knowledge [exhibition
catalogue], Bophana Audiovisual Resource Centre, Phnom Penh, 2008, p.7.
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