Ceremony At The Temple, 2008
Svay Ken was an artist who everyday title of respect in the Khmer language was Lok Ta, or grandfather. At the age of retirement in 1993, he began to paint in a way that opposed all standards of beauty or purpose as far as painting was concerned in Cambodia. Rather than glorify ancient monuments or rural landscapes in linear perspective, Svay Ken portrayed ordinary life in a candid self-taught style. By their very proliferation, his paintings expanded the practice and definition of art in his culture, and made him widely respected as the grandfather of Cambodian contemporary art.
Born seventy years into French colonial rule in 1933 to a family of farmers in rural Takeo province, Svay Ken studied Buddhist precepts as a novice monk before joining the peasant militia Chivapol, commanded by King Norodom Sihanouk to fight against French occupation. It was during the promising but brief period of Independence when Svay moved to the capitol and secured a position as porter and waiter at the lavish Raffles Hotel Le Royal, a career that supported his wife, Tith Yun and their five children both before and after the dislocation of civil war and forced labor under the Khmer Rouge. He opened a small studio and gallery near the Phnom Penh’s busiest public monument Wat Phnom, where he famously painted at his outdoor easel from morning to evening with breaks only for meals and a nap. His gallery became a history book open to all, though it was mostly foreign visitors who came to page through his collection of memories for a souvenir.
His most celebrated body of work was a 128-canvas eulogy to his wife who died in 2000. The exhibition and book Painted Stories: The life of a Cambodian Family from 1941 to the present (2001) became one of the few existing records of everyday family life during a tumultuous sixty years.
Later in his career when his “memories ran out”, he used a digital camera to record objects as inanimate as his medium. He painted Things- the title of his sold-out exhibition at Java Gallery in 2007- floating timelessly in monochromatic space. Although initially painting his surroundings simply entertained him, he became aware that his document of objects ubiquitous to both urban and rural landscapes revealed the drastic change of economy and lifestyle he lived to see. In no particular order he would paint the evolution of practices: a sitting mat, a wooden Art Deco chair, and a plastic chair imported from Vietnam; a clay water vessel, a plastic bucket, a modern shower.
Throughout his career, Svay exhibited annually throughout Cambodia and abroad. He was chosen for the first Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial in 1994. He is collected by the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, the Singapore Art Museum, and the Queensland Art Gallery. He also represented Cambodia in the 6th Asia-Pacific Art Triennial in 2009.