Paris (France), 11/12/2008. Emmanuelle Nhean, painter (Photo: Laurent Le Gouanvic)
"Peuple d'Angkor" (“People of Angkor”) (© Emmanuelle Nhean)29-12-2008
By Laurent Le Gouanvic
Ka-set in English
Click here to read the article in French
Click here to read the article in Khmer
Emmanuelle Nhean's story could be the epitome of the interweaving between Cambodian and French cultures, a story of many ups and downs, but also one of many colours. Among them, she chose to retain the soft and happy ones, conveying a certain joie-de-vivre rather than sadness and pain in her paintings. “Representing beauty and the positive aspects of life keep me busy enough to have any time to reflect on hardship.” The Cambodian-born and Parisian resident used to study medicine in Phnom Penh but chose to follow the artistic path, combining abstract and typical figurative Khmer art. She has now been living on her art for several years, thus turning her passion into a full profession, something she sees as a “duty” toward Cambodia, her native country.
Medicine first...
If one took up the brushes and painted a portrait of Emmanuelle Nhean, the essence of the sketch would entirely revolve around her smile: her laughing eyes would be two elongated lines, her cheekbones, two little circles leading to a generous and embracing smile. If it was not for her long and undulating black hair, the artist's noble face, graced with two full lips, could well bear a striking resemblance with a sculpted bust having pride of place on her bookshelves, in her cosy Paris flat, above various art books and a Petit Robert French dictionary: that of King Jayavarman VII, who reigned over the Khmer Empire from the end of the 12th century till the beginning of the 13th century and had several hospitals and temples built, including the Bayon temple.
However, the life of the daughter of a Lon Nol army colonel who came to France as a refugee in the early 1980s has nothing to do with the ancient King. Not very keen on talking about her personal life, she preferred revealing the story of her artwork, elaborated with patience over the years. There would yet be a lot to say on her life, which started “ordinarily”: “I have always loved art. But at the beginning, I started out in a very classical way. My family was wealthy and my wish was to obtain a solid diploma, a good job and start a pretty family...” After high-school, the young woman set out to go and attend the school of Medicine, following the family tradition of study specialities – her brother and sister studied Literature and Law. “Art appealed to me, but I thought to myself that I should prioritise the rest and that I would paint when I retire!”
1975: art or medical school, the matter was settled with the arrival of the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh. She was 23 years old. On April 17th, she happened to be with her family and not at the hospital where she used to care for the injured when the city was taken, therefore escaping the fate of many students – execution. She was ordered to leave the Cambodian capital with part of her family and survived, working in the fields in the Takeo province in eastern Cambodia.
“Very quickly, we understood what we should and should not do in front of the Khmer Rouge”, she recounts. Her father, a high-ranking military official for Lon Nol, did not have enough time to hide his identity. Khmer Rouge soldiers recognised him and took him away for execution.”
Emmanuelle Nhean did not go into details over that period of time. “Just like for everyone else, at that time”, she summarised, before revealing in an almost apologetic manner: “Up until now, I have always refused to tell this story, except to my close relatives. When I introduce myself, what I want to show is above all my creations. But people tend to focus too much on the deportation. Cambodia must get out of this! We have been through this, and we overcame it. Now, we should roll our sleeves up and rebuild the country!”
Cultural immersion in Paris
“After having been though such hard times, nothing was the same any more”, she continues, recounting very briefly the four months she spent in a refugee camp in Thailand, shortly after the arrival of the Vietnamese in Cambodia and the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. She arrived in France at the age of 27 and obtained a certificate in nursing, which allowed her to find a job, before going back to medicine studies for two years.
As a side hobby to her night job as a nurse in Paris, the young woman spent a lot of her time visiting the many art galleries and museums which the French capital had to offer. There, she had a true revelation. “Seeing all those pieces of art in Paris made me think that I, too, could do things. And what was going to make me progress was not medicine but art.”
Classicism, impressionism, cubism... She took much delight in discovering little by little the world of French painting, following her senses at first and then learning to master different painting techniques during the courses she followed. “I remember, one of the first exhibitions I attended, about Monet. I am short-sighted and when I put my glasses on, I saw the details with more precision but it did not look as beautiful to me. And conversely, when I took them off, it was all blurry but so much more moving. I understood that by changing my viewpoint and painting technique, I could discover a whole new world. I already loved art when I was in Cambodia, but it was more of an instinctive passion, limited to just one world. In Paris, I was able to open up to the whole world.”
Quick success and the building of an artistic career
Her approach was supported among others by her former husband, a teacher and painter, who helped her “get into the world of art” and led her to organise her first display. “I sold half of my paintings on the first day”, she revealed, still thrilled with joy. “I instantly knew I was in my own element and I had found my way. My work had an impact on the public.”
Word of mouth did the rest and soon, she was commissioned by a French publisher to illustrate the front cover of a book gathering literary excerpts from Asia. The wife of a manager in charge of an important European group bought several of her paintings and chose one to illustrate the company's official greeting card... Invited to attend many art fairs and proudly representing her native country, she started taking up the art of stained-glass window-making and won the third prize in a competition. On the side of all this, her tapestry works also started drawing the attention of many. “Every time I took up a new activity, it was magical!”, she said, her eyes squinched up in delight.
If we believe her word, her success is the sole result of accidental encounters and the happy fortunes of life. But she also and truly owes her success to perseverance and infectious enthusiasm. “I do work a lot, it is true. I never stop drawing. Like a cowboy in a western who shoots at every single moving object, I draw all the things I see!”, she said, laughing and obviously delighted to live among her colourful paintings, all stored in her small flat located in the 16th arrondissement of Paris.
Giving Khmer culture its place in the world of contemporary art
Emmanuelle Nhean has given shape to a world of her own in the Parisian cosy place where she lives: typically French and yet decorated with Cambodian hints here and there. In her living-room and even in the corridor she shares with her neighbours, she did not hesitate putting together her huge “Sixtych”, a composition of six paintings constituting a single and same work of art and conveying abundance, a profusion of colours and motifs and symbols inspired by traditional Khmer arts, contemporary Cambodia and European pictorial representations. She made the piece for the Salon des Artistes français where she represented Cambodia as a special guest. The composition owed her the Salon's bronze medal and the “Univers des Arts” magazine award.
The “Sixtych”, just like the other paintings hung on the walls, reflects the artist's steps in the quest she chose to follow: “Managing to represent Khmer art in contemporary art”. “For a long time, whenever I entered the world of Khmer art, I had the feeling I was only copying”, Emmanuelle Nhean explains. “I came to wonder how I could get out of that and avoid doing what we always see and therefore follow my own path and create contemporary Khmer art. This took me several years of work”.
Today, via Khmer art, she still creates abstract paintings and reveals she is “having some fun making figurative paintings to please those who like abstraction and abstract paintings for those who prefer figurative art.” However, her ardent desire to make Khmer culture mingle with contemporary art is more than just a game: “I entered abstraction openly but I feel this call from Khmer culture. It is like a duty I must fulfil”.
Painting happiness rather than the tormenting past
Abstract, figurative, European or Khmer, each of her pieces “has its own little story”, Emmanuelle Nhean stresses, remembering a comment once made by a woman of Cambodian descent, after having visited one of her exhibitions: “Your art pieces bring luck”. The comment moved the artist, to whom “expressing what is beautiful” and “bringing something that is above everyday life, something related to dreams” is dear. One may wonder whether the foreground of the painting entitled “Freedom” represents a woman , inspired by the sculpted galleries of Angkor, bearing the burden of a freed people gathered behind her. The artist deliberately chose to represent liberation rather than subjection and glory rather than destitution. “We must build the 21st century. And Cambodia, like other countries, must take part in that process, with the country's potential”, the energetic painter now in her fifties, insisted.
Hopes for the future
The evils undermining Cambodia – poverty, prostitution, corruption... - she knows them too well, having made regular trips to the country since 1989. These successive trips, however, also strengthened her hopes: “I am happy to have seen Cambodia evolve, even if there are good and bad things. I mainly noticed that there are still people there who, despite what they have been through, have kept within them the will to act for their country. We must work on that together. A Cambodian saying goes: One can break a single stick, but cannot break a bunch of sticks altogether.”
For her next trip to Cambodia, which she probably plans for 2009, Emmanuelle Nhean seriously thinks about having her work displayed in Phnom Penh for the first time. She also hopes she will be able to create bonds with contemporary Cambodian artists, “discover” and “share” with them “a touch of life, and the beautiful and positive things it brings”, by adding her own personal touch to what is truly coming to be the new Khmer art.
-------------
Emmanuelle Nhean's website : www.nhean-khmerart.com
Medicine first...
If one took up the brushes and painted a portrait of Emmanuelle Nhean, the essence of the sketch would entirely revolve around her smile: her laughing eyes would be two elongated lines, her cheekbones, two little circles leading to a generous and embracing smile. If it was not for her long and undulating black hair, the artist's noble face, graced with two full lips, could well bear a striking resemblance with a sculpted bust having pride of place on her bookshelves, in her cosy Paris flat, above various art books and a Petit Robert French dictionary: that of King Jayavarman VII, who reigned over the Khmer Empire from the end of the 12th century till the beginning of the 13th century and had several hospitals and temples built, including the Bayon temple.
However, the life of the daughter of a Lon Nol army colonel who came to France as a refugee in the early 1980s has nothing to do with the ancient King. Not very keen on talking about her personal life, she preferred revealing the story of her artwork, elaborated with patience over the years. There would yet be a lot to say on her life, which started “ordinarily”: “I have always loved art. But at the beginning, I started out in a very classical way. My family was wealthy and my wish was to obtain a solid diploma, a good job and start a pretty family...” After high-school, the young woman set out to go and attend the school of Medicine, following the family tradition of study specialities – her brother and sister studied Literature and Law. “Art appealed to me, but I thought to myself that I should prioritise the rest and that I would paint when I retire!”
1975: art or medical school, the matter was settled with the arrival of the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh. She was 23 years old. On April 17th, she happened to be with her family and not at the hospital where she used to care for the injured when the city was taken, therefore escaping the fate of many students – execution. She was ordered to leave the Cambodian capital with part of her family and survived, working in the fields in the Takeo province in eastern Cambodia.
“Very quickly, we understood what we should and should not do in front of the Khmer Rouge”, she recounts. Her father, a high-ranking military official for Lon Nol, did not have enough time to hide his identity. Khmer Rouge soldiers recognised him and took him away for execution.”
Emmanuelle Nhean did not go into details over that period of time. “Just like for everyone else, at that time”, she summarised, before revealing in an almost apologetic manner: “Up until now, I have always refused to tell this story, except to my close relatives. When I introduce myself, what I want to show is above all my creations. But people tend to focus too much on the deportation. Cambodia must get out of this! We have been through this, and we overcame it. Now, we should roll our sleeves up and rebuild the country!”
Cultural immersion in Paris
“After having been though such hard times, nothing was the same any more”, she continues, recounting very briefly the four months she spent in a refugee camp in Thailand, shortly after the arrival of the Vietnamese in Cambodia and the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. She arrived in France at the age of 27 and obtained a certificate in nursing, which allowed her to find a job, before going back to medicine studies for two years.
As a side hobby to her night job as a nurse in Paris, the young woman spent a lot of her time visiting the many art galleries and museums which the French capital had to offer. There, she had a true revelation. “Seeing all those pieces of art in Paris made me think that I, too, could do things. And what was going to make me progress was not medicine but art.”
Classicism, impressionism, cubism... She took much delight in discovering little by little the world of French painting, following her senses at first and then learning to master different painting techniques during the courses she followed. “I remember, one of the first exhibitions I attended, about Monet. I am short-sighted and when I put my glasses on, I saw the details with more precision but it did not look as beautiful to me. And conversely, when I took them off, it was all blurry but so much more moving. I understood that by changing my viewpoint and painting technique, I could discover a whole new world. I already loved art when I was in Cambodia, but it was more of an instinctive passion, limited to just one world. In Paris, I was able to open up to the whole world.”
Quick success and the building of an artistic career
Her approach was supported among others by her former husband, a teacher and painter, who helped her “get into the world of art” and led her to organise her first display. “I sold half of my paintings on the first day”, she revealed, still thrilled with joy. “I instantly knew I was in my own element and I had found my way. My work had an impact on the public.”
Word of mouth did the rest and soon, she was commissioned by a French publisher to illustrate the front cover of a book gathering literary excerpts from Asia. The wife of a manager in charge of an important European group bought several of her paintings and chose one to illustrate the company's official greeting card... Invited to attend many art fairs and proudly representing her native country, she started taking up the art of stained-glass window-making and won the third prize in a competition. On the side of all this, her tapestry works also started drawing the attention of many. “Every time I took up a new activity, it was magical!”, she said, her eyes squinched up in delight.
If we believe her word, her success is the sole result of accidental encounters and the happy fortunes of life. But she also and truly owes her success to perseverance and infectious enthusiasm. “I do work a lot, it is true. I never stop drawing. Like a cowboy in a western who shoots at every single moving object, I draw all the things I see!”, she said, laughing and obviously delighted to live among her colourful paintings, all stored in her small flat located in the 16th arrondissement of Paris.
Giving Khmer culture its place in the world of contemporary art
Emmanuelle Nhean has given shape to a world of her own in the Parisian cosy place where she lives: typically French and yet decorated with Cambodian hints here and there. In her living-room and even in the corridor she shares with her neighbours, she did not hesitate putting together her huge “Sixtych”, a composition of six paintings constituting a single and same work of art and conveying abundance, a profusion of colours and motifs and symbols inspired by traditional Khmer arts, contemporary Cambodia and European pictorial representations. She made the piece for the Salon des Artistes français where she represented Cambodia as a special guest. The composition owed her the Salon's bronze medal and the “Univers des Arts” magazine award.
The “Sixtych”, just like the other paintings hung on the walls, reflects the artist's steps in the quest she chose to follow: “Managing to represent Khmer art in contemporary art”. “For a long time, whenever I entered the world of Khmer art, I had the feeling I was only copying”, Emmanuelle Nhean explains. “I came to wonder how I could get out of that and avoid doing what we always see and therefore follow my own path and create contemporary Khmer art. This took me several years of work”.
Today, via Khmer art, she still creates abstract paintings and reveals she is “having some fun making figurative paintings to please those who like abstraction and abstract paintings for those who prefer figurative art.” However, her ardent desire to make Khmer culture mingle with contemporary art is more than just a game: “I entered abstraction openly but I feel this call from Khmer culture. It is like a duty I must fulfil”.
Painting happiness rather than the tormenting past
Abstract, figurative, European or Khmer, each of her pieces “has its own little story”, Emmanuelle Nhean stresses, remembering a comment once made by a woman of Cambodian descent, after having visited one of her exhibitions: “Your art pieces bring luck”. The comment moved the artist, to whom “expressing what is beautiful” and “bringing something that is above everyday life, something related to dreams” is dear. One may wonder whether the foreground of the painting entitled “Freedom” represents a woman , inspired by the sculpted galleries of Angkor, bearing the burden of a freed people gathered behind her. The artist deliberately chose to represent liberation rather than subjection and glory rather than destitution. “We must build the 21st century. And Cambodia, like other countries, must take part in that process, with the country's potential”, the energetic painter now in her fifties, insisted.
Hopes for the future
The evils undermining Cambodia – poverty, prostitution, corruption... - she knows them too well, having made regular trips to the country since 1989. These successive trips, however, also strengthened her hopes: “I am happy to have seen Cambodia evolve, even if there are good and bad things. I mainly noticed that there are still people there who, despite what they have been through, have kept within them the will to act for their country. We must work on that together. A Cambodian saying goes: One can break a single stick, but cannot break a bunch of sticks altogether.”
For her next trip to Cambodia, which she probably plans for 2009, Emmanuelle Nhean seriously thinks about having her work displayed in Phnom Penh for the first time. She also hopes she will be able to create bonds with contemporary Cambodian artists, “discover” and “share” with them “a touch of life, and the beautiful and positive things it brings”, by adding her own personal touch to what is truly coming to be the new Khmer art.
-------------
Emmanuelle Nhean's website : www.nhean-khmerart.com
1 comment:
Happy new year everyone for the year 2009
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