Catalogue Than Sok "Les Formes de l'Eau"

B A T I A
S A R E M G A L L E R Y
Bamboo street, Wat Damnak
Siem Reap, Kingdom of Cambodia
Than Sok,
Kbach Teuk /
Les Formes de l’Eau
The Shapes Of Water

THAN SOK
Kbach Teuk / Les Formes de l’Eau
par Yves Zlotowski, Janvier 2022
La Galerie Batia Sarem est très heureuse de présenter les peintures de l’artiste
cambodgien Than Sok. La série s’intitule la forme de l’eau (en cambodgien
Kbach Teuk) et se présente sous la forme de composition en « all over » 1 de
peintures acryliques. Sur toute la toile, sont proposés des motifs répétés qui
évoquent l’eau sous divers aspects, avec en fond des monochromes de bleu,
de vert, de jaune ou d’ocre. Une couleur domine chacune des compositions.
C’est peut-être une eau boueuse ou agitée, dominée par un dessin schématisé
représentant les fleurs ou animaux habitant les rivières et la mer, comme les
titres donnés à chaque toile l’évoquent. L’eau, dans chacune des toiles, prend
ainsi la forme d’un escargot, d’une hyacinthe ou d’un reptile.
Dans Kbach Teuk, Sok représente la faune et la fleur de l’eau comme si cellesci
se reproduisaient à l’infini et finissaient par se confondre avec l’eau-même.
Il souligne ainsi le caractère paradoxal de la forme de l’eau. Elle n’a, en tant
que telle, pas de forme définie puisqu’elle épouse celle de ses habitants.
C’est donc une forme aux possibilités multiples à partir de laquelle Than Sok
propose des variations. Sur certaines toiles, le schéma indique la mobilité de
l’eau et la toile tente d’en capturer les mouvements. Sur d’autres, les motifs
reprennent une vision synthétique d’un animal comme l’escargot, le têtard ou
la palourde.
¹ « All-over « signifie que la composition n’a pas de centre, pas de début, pas de fin. Cela suggère qu’elle peut s’étendre à l’infini
au-delà des limites de la toile.
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L’art de Sok relève d’abord d’une attention à la société qui l’entoure.
Indirectement, il rappelle que le fleuve principal, le Mékong, et les lacs du
Cambodge sont pollués. Ainsi cette eau précieuse est-elle menacée. Mais ce
contexte est évoqué de manière subtile et indirecte. La dimension politique
est d’ailleurs plutôt en arrière-plan dans cette série. Dans une toile plus frontale
datant de 2020 - qui n’est pas présentée ici et appartient à la collection de la
Galerie Batia Sarem - Sok reprend ces motifs répétés de l’eau mais parsème
sa toile de déchets.
Bien que connectée aux questions environnementales, la série présentée ici
s’apparente davantage à une méditation esthétique. Sok mène une quête
spirituelle, la répétition du motif en all-over et la variation des toiles, toutes
composées selon un principe identique, indiquent la volonté de saisir quelque
chose qui s’échappe : est-ce le concept de l’eau que Sok veut dessiner ? Mais
l’eau fuit l’artiste et le spectateur. Elle semble, insaisissable, se déplacer de
toiles en toiles. Il n’est même pas sûr que ce soit bien elle qui se cache derrière
ces motifs identiques. Paradoxalement, cette volonté de synthèse, cette
recherche presque conceptuelle rend l’eau méconnaissable, en la réduisant à
un dessin géométrique qui est repris à l’infini.
Le caractère fascinant des peintures de Than Sok vient d’abord de leur
simplicité. Son art est celui du dépouillement, seule manière pour l’artiste
d’approcher l’essence de ce qu’il entend saisir. Car Sok est en quête de ce
qui peut être perdu. L’artiste doit préserver un élément perçu comme fragile
en en capturant la forme la plus simple. Le dépouillement est donc une
manière de « sauver » le réel de sa destruction possible. Prenons deux de
ses installations parmi les plus saisissantes. Dans Tragedy (2009) Sok a aligné
des petites « maisons des esprits » (maisons protectrices qu’on trouve devant
toutes les habitations cambodgiennes), fabriquées par l’artiste à l’aide de
bâtons d’encens, à demi-brulées et fixées sur un mur. Jour après jour, l’artiste
en brulait une intégralement. Dans Srie Bun (2016), Sok avait accroché aux
murs diverses robes traditionnelles de moines, à moitié déchirées. Sok avait
été frappé par la fragilité de tous les éléments ici repris - les robes de moine
et les maisons des esprits - et leur possible disparition l’a touché. Ainsi, les
maisons sont-elles brulées et les robes déchirées. Sok souligne le caractère
transitoire des témoignages de la spiritualité dans la société. Les éléments
matériels qui l’incarnent reposent sur des conventions et des croyances qui
sont fragiles. On peut d’abord interpréter l’œuvre de Sok comme mue par une
nécessité d’alerter sur la nécessité de conserver les témoignages du spirituel
dans une société de plus en plus matérialiste.
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Mais Sok cherche avant tout à relater une forme de matérialité, une « présence
» des choses, qui sont mises en scène de manière solennelle. Les robes et
maisons des esprits sont émouvantes car comme l’eau dans Kbach Teuk, elles
sont rendues à leur plus simple expression et d’une fragilité poignante. Dans
toutes les œuvres de Sok, il y a ce même paradoxe. Sok veut faire ressentir
la matérialité par une extrême simplicité et mais également par la répétition,
via les diverses manifestations de l’eau. En tentant de saisir cette matérialité
multiple, il la fait disparaitre, il la rend fuyante et immatérielle. C’est à chaque
fois en réunissant dépouillement et répétition que Sok nous fait sentir ce
paradoxe de la matière qui s’offre et disparaît dans un même mouvement.
Le caractère concret et dépouillé des objets - ou de la nature en l’espèce -
demeure donc une représentation qui essaie de s’imposer mais qui contient
en même temps son anéantissement. Cette matérialité presque sensuelle que
Sok dispose en face de nous évoque le néant. Ce mouvement est interprété par
la curatrice Caroline Ha Thuc 2 – en particulier s’agissant des deux installations
évoquées – comme une « déconstruction du spirituel ». C’est ce va-et-vient
étrange entre une image qui s’impose et son effacement qui donne tout sa
puissance au travail de Sok.
Cette manière étrange que les oeuvres de Sok ont de s’imposer à nous
provient de l’inscription de l’artiste dans une réflexion passionnante sur
la tradition et la manière dont celle-ci peut traverser les époques. Sok
s’interroge sur la capacité de l’art à transformer les pratiques rituelles ou les
représentations figées. Cette question de la durabilité des pratiques obsède
les artistes cambodgiens, en raison notamment de l’héritage formidable
(et parfois intimidant) de l’art angkorien mais aussi de l’expérience tragique
d’un génocide durant lequel la population et l’art ont fait l’expérience du
péril de l’anéantissement. La continuité avec le passé, l’inscription dans une
tradition… l’art de Sok - pourtant si contemporain quand on prend en compte
son économie de moyens - l’embrasse complètement. Le titre de la série -
Kbach Teuk - fait référence à la tradition cambodgienne du Kbach, l’ornement
architectural que l’on trouve dans les maisons, le mobilier, les bas-reliefs, les
objets…. Cette pratique traditionnelle de l’art décoratif s’est transmise via
l’oralité, d’artisan en artisan. Ses motifs sont d’ailleurs des images schématiques
d’animaux ou de plantes.
2
Caroline Ha Thuc, Sok Than : Deconstructive Beliefs, www.cobosocial.com, Novembre 2017
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Les peintures de la forme de l’eau tirent donc leur inspiration de l’observation
des représentations de l’eau dans la Pagode d’argent du Palais Royal à
Phnom Penh et des promenades de Sok dans les rivières. Erin Gleeson , la
curatrice de notre exposition, souligne l’importance du passage de Sok à
l’École des beaux-arts Reyum située à Phnom Penh et qui a fermé ses portes
en 2007. Sok, en plus de ses cours de dessins et d’art contemporain, a suivi
un enseignement dédié à l’art du Kbach. Erin Gleeson relate alors qu’une des
professeures de Sok, Mme Saree, remarquait que les représentations de l’eau
dans l’artisanat contemporain cambodgien demeuraient figées et ne faisaient
que reproduire les images ancestrales sans aucun renouvellement. Elle a
alors encouragé ses étudiants à innover en matière de dessin d’ornements
décoratifs, leur conseillant de se fier à l’observation et à l’expérience, pour
mieux capturer les variations de l’eau, élément vital et porteur de promesses
esthétiques. Des années plus tard, Sok réalise les vœux de sa professeure :
il renouvelle la représentation traditionnelle de l’eau, en l’inscrivant dans ses
propres recherches artistiques.
Batia Sarem est donc heureuse de présenter en France les peintures de
cet artiste majeur, dont l’impact dépasse le contexte cambodgien. Parce
qu’il puise dans ses observations, son éducation artistique et la tradition du
Cambodge, l’art de Sok atteint une forme de synthèse fascinante. On sent
à quel point Sok réfléchit sur la représentation, les images. Dès lors, il utilise
les divers mediums disponibles – installation, sculpture, dessin et ici peinture
– selon qu’ils servent son propos. Cette relation personnelle à la matérialité
de l’image lui permet de restituer la présence des choses, tout en parvenant
à mettre en avant leur précarité. Cette mise en forme de la matérialité est
pour lui la seule manière possible de relater la spiritualité. Sok propose donc,
dans chacune de ses œuvres, une réinterprétation audacieuse de la tradition
cambodgienne, sa démarche étant toujours ouverte à l’interprétation et d’une
bouleversante économie de moyens. C’est à découvrir cet artiste irréductible
à une analyse univoque que Batia Sarem vous invite aujourd’hui.
Yves Zlotowski
Janvier 2022
3
Erin Gleeson, Introductory Notes on Kbach Teuk Painting by Than Sok, 2020.
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The Shapes of Water
by Yves Zlotowski, January 2022
Batia Sarem Gallery is delighted to present an exhibition of paintings by the
Cambodian artist Than Sok. The Shapes of Water (Kbach teuk in Cambodian)
is a series of “all-over” 1 compositions in acrylic featuring motifs repeated
across the whole canvas that suggest water in all its aspects on a blue, green,
yellow or ochre monochrome background. A single colour suffuses each
composition. We might be looking at muddy or turbulent water, in which a
stylised representation of the flowers or animals that live in the rivers and the
sea prevails, as alluded to by the titles given to the canvasses. The water, in
each work, thus takes on the form of a snail, a hyacinth or a reptile.
In Kbach teuk, Sok represents the fauna and flora of the water as if they are
endlessly reproducing and ultimately become one with the water itself. He
thus underlines the paradoxical nature of the form of water. It does not, in itself,
have a definite form as it melds itself with that of its inhabitants. It is therefore
a form with multiple possibilities, on which Than Sok builds variations. On
some canvases, the design suggests water’s mobility and the canvas tries to
capture its movements. On others, the motifs form an overall pattern featuring
an animal such as a snail, a tadpole or a clam.
Sok’s art lies primarily in an attentiveness to the society around him. Indirectly,
it refers to the fact that the Cambodia’s main river, the Mekong, and its lakes
are polluted. So this precious water is under threat. Nonetheless, this context
is alluded to only subtly and indirectly. The political dimension is more of a
backdrop in this series. This comes more to the fore in a canvas from 2020 –
not shown here and belonging to Batia Sarem Gallery’s collection - Sok returns
to these repeated water designs but sprinkles his canvas with waste.
¹ All-over means that the composition has no centre, no starting point, no end point. It suggests the composition can extend to
infinity, beyond the edges of the canvas.
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Although linked to environmental concerns, the series shown here is more
akin to aesthetic meditation. Sok is on a spiritual quest, the repetition of the
all-over design and the variation of the canvases, all composed according to
the same principle, point to a desire to seize something which eludes capture:
is it the concept of water that Sok wants to draw? But water flees from the
artist and the viewer. Elusive, it appears to move from canvas to canvas. One
can’t even be sure that it really is water hiding behind these identical motifs.
Paradoxically, this desire for synthesis, this almost conceptual search makes
the water unrecognisable, by reducing it to a geometric design which is
endlessly repeated.
The fascinating character of Than Sok’s paintings comes first from their
simplicity. His art is one of stripping back, the only way in which the artist is able
to approach the essence of what he wants to grasp. Because Sok is in search
of that which might be lost. The artist needs to preserve an element perceived
as fragile by capturing it in its simplest form. Accordingly, stripping back is a
way of “saving” the real from its potential destruction. Let us look at two of his
most striking installations. In Tragedy (2009) Sok lined up small “spirit houses”
(shrines offering protection that one finds in front of all Cambodian homes),
made by the artist using half-burnt incense sticks and fixed to a wall. Day
after day, the artist burnt down a whole house. In Srie Bun (2016), Sok hung
different traditional monks’ robes, torn in half, on the gallery walls. Sok was
struck by the fragility of all the elements referred to here – clerical robes and
house spirits - and moved by the possibility of their disappearance. So, the
houses are burnt and the robes torn up. Sok underlines the transitory nature of
society’s spiritual observances. The material elements which embody this are
based on conventions and beliefs that are fragile. One can, in the first instance,
interpret Sok’s work as driven by the need to preserve spiritual observance in
an increasingly materialistic society.
However, Sok seeks above all to impart a form of materiality, a “presence” of
things, sited with solemnity. The robes and spirit houses move us as does the
water in Kbach teuk; they are given their simplest expression and a poignant
fragility. In all of Sok’s work, there is this same paradox. Sok wants the materiality
to be felt through an extreme simplicity and, but also, by means of repetition,
through water in its various manifestations. By trying to grasp this materiality
in its different forms, he makes it disappear, renders it elusive and immaterial.
It is by bringing together the stripping back and the repetition that Sok makes
us feel this paradox in a materiality which both offers itself up and disappears
in the same movement.
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The concrete and stripped-down nature of the objects – or of nature in the
case of Kbach teuk - is still a representation which tries to impose itself but
which at the same time contains its annihilation. This almost sensual materiality
which Sok presents us with evokes nothingness. It is a movement interpreted
by the curator, Caroline Ha Thuc 2 – especially in the two installations referred
to – as a “deconstruction of the spiritual”. It is this strange coming and going
between an image that is very present and its erasure which gives so much
power to Sok’s work.
This strange way in which Sok’s pieces make themselves felt comes from the
artist’s dedication to a passionate reflection on tradition and the way in which
it transcends time. Sok questions art’s ability to transform ritual practices or
fixed representations. Cambodian artists are preoccupied with the question
of the durability of these practices, notably because of the formidable (and
at times intimidating) legacy of Angkor art, but also because of the tragic
experience of a genocide during which Cambodia’s people and art were in
danger of being annihilated. Continuity with the past, being embedded in a
tradition… Sok’s art – yet so contemporary when one considers his economy of
means – completely embraces this. The title of the series - Kbach Teuk – refers
to the Cambodian tradition of Kbach, the decorative elements of Cambodian
architecture found in houses, on furniture, temple bas-reliefs, objects…. This
traditional art of decorative ornamentation is transmitted orally from artisan to
artisan, and incidentally, uses patterns based on schematic images of animals
or plants.
The paintings of the forms of water thus draw their inspiration from observing
representations of water in the silver Pagoda of the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh
and Sok’s own river walks. Erin Gleeson 3 , our exhibition curator, highlights the
importance of Sok’s time at the Reyum Art School in Phnom Penh which closed
its doors in 2007. Sok, in addition to his classes in drawing and contemporary
art, followed a course dedicated to the art of Kbach. Erin Gleeson tells us
that one of Sok’s teachers, Ms Saree, noted that the representations of water
in contemporary Cambodian craft were stuck in the past and were mere
reproductions of ancestral imagery. She encouraged her students to innovate
regarding the design of decorative ornaments, advising them to rely on
observation and experience, to better capture the varied forms of water, a vital
element and carrier of aesthetic promise. Some years later, Sok has realised
his teacher’s wishes: he is renewing the traditional representation of water,
embedding it in his own artistic research.
² Caroline Ha Thuc, Sok Than: Deconstructive Beliefs, www.cobosocial.com, November 2017.
³ Erin Gleeson, Introductory Notes on Kbach Teuk Paintings by Than Sok, 2020.
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It gives Batia Sarem great pleasure, therefore, to show the paintings by this
major artist in France, the impact of which goes beyond the Cambodian
context. Because he draws on his observations, his art education and
Cambodia’s tradition, Sok’s art achieves a fascinating synthesis. One can feel
how deeply Sok considers representation, images. With this in mind, he uses
the different available mediums – installation, sculpture, drawing and, in this
case, painting – depending on his intent. This personal relationship to the
materiality of the image allows him to reinstate the presence of things while
foregrounding their precariousness. Giving form to materiality is for him the
only way to relate to spirituality. Sok suggests, therefore, in each work, an
audacious reinterpretation of Cambodian tradition, his approach always open
to interpretation and using a poignant economy of means. Batia Sarem invites
you to discover this irreducible artist.
Yves Zlotowski
January 2022
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THAN SOK
Kbach Teuk / As It Is Above, It Is Below
by Erin Gleeson, January 2022
Than Sok’s most recent body of work for Batia Sarem feels like a living, breathing
meditation on its eponymous subject: water forms, or kbach teuk in Khmer
language, the artist’s mother-tongue. The intricate, rhythmic paintings manifest
dual heartbeats of homage. Present is the heartbeat of teuk – water – its life
and life-giving qualities, its being-ness and relationality with interdependent
beings. Present is the heartbeat of kbach – form and ornamentation; imagined
and created by ancestors’ relations with nature’s forms, kbach has been
applied to material culture’s sacred and secular surfaces in and beyond what
is now Cambodia for over a millennium.
To think with the becoming of Kbach Teuk, I propose centering mimicry in Than
Sok’s multidisciplinary practice through a selection of past works. Whether in
drawing and painting, installation, video, and performance, Than conjures
doubles, replicas, re-presentations, and likenesses of materials, spaces and
rituals related to Cambodia. In his first solo exhibition, Tragedy (2009), he
constructed delicate, miniature replicas of rural, wooden, animist spirit houses
wholly with incense sticks. Incense is one of a number of materials used by
humans at the site of a spirit house to aid in opening a potential relation
and communication with a spirit or spirits, whether ancestral, territorial, the
undead, or others. Burning the sculptures to ash – as a performance and video
installation – was a critical thinking into the values and behaviors asserted
through nationalized religion. In Than’s ongoing series Objects of Belief (2012
-), he photorealistically documents Cambodian Buddhist temple material
culture. Likenesses of offerings, talismans, and other functionary items are
rendered in watercolor, centered on a white picture plane, and sometimes
presented as pairs with their model object. Hand strung jasmine wreaths, mylar
wrapped gift baskets, money (in both Khmer Riel and United States Dollar),
clocks, silver trays, candles, meditation pillows, red string, tea sets, donation
boxes, umbrellas, and so many more objects are seen together. Disassociated
from temples’ time and space, especially in the deliberate absence of the
likeness of the Buddha, the drawings set a peculiar scene without a setting,
provoking curiosity around belief’s relation to material culture. The installation
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Srie Bun (2016) also restages Buddhist material culture. Casually hanging from
nails in the wall at even height are five clerical garments of different colors
belonging to Maha Nikaya and Thammayut sects of Cambodia’s Theravada
Buddhist system in which color signifies rank. The Buddhist monk, wearing
robes, is believed to delineate a merit field comparable to the fertile rice
field, where seeds are sown for reaping. Than questions the robe’s symbolic
power atop mortal male bodies (in Cambodia, females are restricted from
ordination), and if peace can be advanced when hierarchical notions of
sect and rank are maintained at the moral core of society. These works, as if
conceptual microscopes and introspective mirrors, offer layered experiences
and meanings, chances for close looking into constructions of power, belief,
and relations amongst human and more-than-human beings.
Further towards Kbach Teuk’s becoming is understanding kbach itself as a
language of mimicry, with strong ties to pedagogical histories and identity
formation in Cambodia. Kbach, in Khmer language, has many meanings,
referring to specific gestures in dance and theater (kbach robam), particular
techniques in Khmer boxing (kbach kun), or a vast vocabulary of ornamental
forms that decorate, and at times divine, objects and architectural surfaces
throughout Cambodia. The latter kbach was the focus of preeminent Reyum
Institute of Art and Culture’s (1999-2010) iconic publication, Kbach: A Study
of Khmer Ornament (2005).¹ For educators, researchers, artists, artisans and
the general public, Reyum’s half-decade long study brought greater legibility
through historicity and technical documentation to these ubiquitous forms
across time. The study revealed how kbach has mimicked forms primarily
belonging to nature, how they are symmetrically divided, meaningfully
embellished, and how elder’s methodologies of understanding and creating
have been passed on generationally through pedagogical mimicry via
apprenticeship. Examples of core kbach forms include a buffalo tooth, which
inspired a stele-like kbach, and a fish tooth – a similar, sharper form – both
commonly seen repeated in the designs of wooden fences and overhangs
in traditional rural homes, or as engraved bands around royal silver bowls,
jewelry, and a host of other applications. The kbach of a lotus petal, Bodhi
leaf, a snail, a stamen, and so many more, are not only represented as core,
basic forms, but are given varying line treatments, volume, and importantly,
embellishments that also derived from nature, such as fire (kbach phni pleung),
or intertwining vines (kbach phni voal).
¹ Chan Vitharin and Preap Chanmara. 2005. Kbach: A Study of Khmer Ornament. Editors Ly Daravuth and Ingrid Muan. Reyum
Publishing, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
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All cultures have their own versions of kbach – their own forms, also most
commonly derived from nature, that are translated, interpreted, abstracted,
and combined for wide ranging applications. Not only has kbach been
applied in what is now Cambodia for aesthetic purposes related to notions of
beauty and its sensorial potentials, but also, consciously or unconsciously over
time, as part of identity formation, as a constitute of political power, territorial
claim, a gender expression, a medium of spirit communication and prayer,
and much more. Kbach is a language in and of itself and, like all languages, it
is constantly evolving. A core lexicon is shaped over time by ongoing overlap
between creators and users, and while some forms and knowledge are cared
for with continuity and varying inflections, others fall away, and inventions are
added, all shaping our consciousness and potentials of expression.
It is this confluence of a culture’s inheritance, losses, relationships, inventions,
and potential futures that seeded Kbach Teuk nearly two decades ago. After
years serving as a novice monk in a Therevada Buddhist pagoda in his home
province of Takeo, and before studying architecture, Than Sok was a student
at Reyum Art School (2001-2007) in Phnom Penh. He trained in kbach’s
exacting lines, proportional rules, and compositional applications, while also
learning representational painting of both perspectival and flat traditions. Sok
extended his foundational studies towards contemporary art practice in the
first and only Reyum Art School Workshop (2005-2007). Over the years, he
was exposed to and often participant in Reyum’s rich ethnographic research
and exhibitions, and learned with associated and visiting scholars, artists
and curators. This combined, extra-national education in the early 2000s was
unique, especially at a time when the internet remained mostly inaccessible.
Than gained critical insight into notions and practices of cultural tradition and
continuity that defined Reyum’s work, which came to deeply influenced his
own thinking.
One of Than Sok’s instructors at Reyum was master traditional painter, Duong
Saree (born 1957). Like the institution of Reyum where she taught, Ms.
Saree had adopted critical concern around copyist pedagogy introduced
during the French Protectorate (1856-1954) that became synonymous with
and foundational to structuring the first centralized colonial art curriculum,
École des arts Cambodgiens in Phnom Penh (1917). Colonial concern was
that knowledge of practices associated with the Khmer Empire - so desired
for reifying colonial identity and its markets – for example kbach as applied
during the celebrated Angkorian period, would tragically wane without
documentation and replication. While Ms. Saree inherited some of the
continuities advanced through colonial pedagogy, when she taught copyist
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mimicry it was not to reify associated periods of power, rather her commitment
to cultural preservation was imbricated with responsibility as a survivor of the
Khmer Rouge regime which killed 90% of educated citizens including artisans
and artists, between 1975-1979. While some surviving artists’ cultural revival
efforts became tied rigidly to the past, Ms. Saree’s sense of responsibility
embraced culture as fluid and changing, engaging with curiosity around
culture’s representational constructions.
Ms. Saree initiated pedagogical practices I refer to as critical mimicry. A
poignant example of this was an assignment critical of the limitations and
repetitive application of five kbach teuk she remembers being taught, and
which she later located in both traditional and modern temple murals dating
from the mid-18th century onwards.² This visual representation equated
underrepresentation, specifically given water’s important role in Hindu
narratives which constitute a primary subject matter in many Cambodian
Buddhist temple murals and bas reliefs. As a volunteer at Reyum Institute and
Reyum Art School (2005-2007), I began to look more closely at representations
of water in general and especially across Asia. Initial comparisons confirmed
East Asian imaging traditions, from woodblock to ink painting, embraced a
landscape genre that honored water as subject itself, as well as in relation to
elements such as wind and light, such as in Ma Yuan (1160 – 1225)’s Water
Album. Representational traditions in Cambodia involving water have a greater
connection to South Asian practices, in which water has been cast primarily
as scenography; functionary to human and mythical characters’ dramas in
moralist narratives. Ms. Saree asked, what if the forms representing water could
more closely reflect the relationship with water’s narrative application? Should
proportions and compositions be restructured to give more space to water
as subject or character itself? How does water behave in its different forms –
pond, puddle, stream, river, marsh, sea, and so on, and in relation to different
phenomenon like gravity or elements like air? How to create embellishments
to these forms and behaviors? Her assignment would require aptitude of
students’ steady line work – its physical and mental demands, but not their
copyist skills. Rather she assigned textual and visual revisiting of inheritance
and subjective experience through observation of water as a methodology to
spur imagination and innovation of new kbach teuk.
2
San Phalla. 2007. Wat Painting in Cambodia. Reyum Publishing, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
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This critical mimicry is central to Than Sok’s Kbach Teuk for Batia Sarem. Each
of the eighteen canvases are saturated in monochromatic and blended color
variations. While some colors reference the artist’s experience of different
waters – from the red-brown of the Mekong River in rainy season, to the blues
of the sea, greens of marsh and yellow-browns of mangrove; other colors pay
homage to water as found painted in temples – either aged and faded, restored
or newly created. Sok has overlaid, as if to infuse each color – each water body
– with unique character, through delicate, rhythmic lines that are drawn from
water’s interdependent lifeforms. Our amphibian and plant relatives, such as
snail and snake, water lily and hyacinth, as well as unseen relations that move
water as waves or tides, inform and give form to water. In each creation, kbach
teuk becomes an all-over composition, an immersive pattern, one that shifts
based on the viewers position and proximity to the painting, as with water
itself – always in motion, whether perceptible to us or not.
Than’s approach to expanding the canon of kbach teuk feels especially
reverent considering water’s dominant role in Cambodia, throughout time. It
is believed that water and its innovative management for both irrigation and
spiritual means was essential to the making and maintaining of the largest
pre-industrial city in the world: Angkor.³ Prior to coloniality in Cambodia,
the monarch owned land, while water was unowned and collectively shared.
Whole cities, including residential structures, were built stilted along the
riverbanks or floating on the river itself.
Life for humans, animals and plants alike has been sustained in Cambodia
specifically in relation to the expansive Mekong River, which connects the
Tibetan Qinghai plateau glaciers to the South China Sea through lands currently
divided into six nations. Monsoon rains and snowmelt cause the Mekong River
to flow into Cambodia’s Tonle Sap River, at the sacred Chaktamouk confluence
in Phnom Penh, with such force that the latter reverses its flow and fills the
Tonle Sap Lake near Angkor Wat. The lake greatly expands by the river’s
reversal, dispersing sediment, supporting wetlands, fisheries, rice-growing
areas, animal migrations, and so much more. 4
When writing this reflection, I came across the manuscript, Water and Light:
A Cambodian Journey of the Mekong by Georges Groslier, founder of École
des arts Cambodgiens and the National Museum of Cambodia. I hopefully
expected a study on the title’s eponymous elements from a committed
3
B.P. Groslier, 1979. “The Angkorian Hydaulic City: Exploration or Over-Exploitation of the Soil?” Translated by Terry Lustig and
Cristophe Pottier. Bulletin de L’École Français d’Extrême Orient 66: 161-202.
4
Cambodia’s hydraulic histories are well documented. Here, from Genealogy of Bassac. 2021. Ed. Brian McGrath and Pensereypanga.
Terreform, 2021: Pen Sereypagna. “Earthworks, Sand and Gambling: An Introduction to Phnom Penh Atlas.” 34-43. and
Shelby Doyle. “Chaktamuk: The Hydrology of the Four Faces.” 82-99
20

documentarian of Khmer forms, yet instead it lamented localization practices
in temple painting and ornamentation, whose gates were viewable from the
river along its banks. Groslier’s relationship to the water subjects it mostly as a
means to elsewhere, yet there is one particular description that acknowledges
the river’s relationality beyond humans, as it “flows on into the sky and is
filled with it”. 5 I write this on the homelands of the Dakhóta Oyátu, Mní Sóta
Makhóčhe, meaning Land Where the Water Reflects the Clouds. Also known as
Land of 10,000 Lakes, though there are thousands more, including Gichigami,
the largest freshwater lake in the world, and Omashkoozo-zaaga’igan, the
headwaters of the Mississippi River. During three of four seasons, when the
waters are not frozen, we physically experience the Dakhóta name of the lands
when the sky worlds are mirrored in the waters.
“As It Is Above, It Is Below”, a teaching grounded in critical mimicry, is
shared across many cultures, and acknowledges intimate relations between
differing realms. Kbach Teuk creates a visual enmeshment of water’s layered
and connected worlds. Than’s paintings are surface, and water’s surface
(unlike most other surfaces ornamented with kbach) reveals depths unseen
and unknown. While Cambodia’s unique, natural, ancient, and generous
hydraulic systems – like many across the earth – are increasingly vulnerable to
anthropocentric nationalisms and neocolonialisms, Than Sok resists replicating
water in relation to its demise, or it’s colonial holding patterns. 6 The paintings’
undulating kbach act as sensuous grids 7 and sentient nets of cohabitation and
interdependence. Responsive to past and present with future in mind, Kbach
Teuk are also technologies of knowing, capable of instigating greater intimacy,
consciousness and relationality with water’s life and water as life.
Erin Gleeson
January 2022
5
Georges Groslier.1929/2016. Water and Light: A Cambodian Journey of the Mekong. DatASIA.
6
Jessica L. Horton and Kanet Catherine Berlo. “Beyond the Mirror, Indigenous Ecologies and ‘New Materialisms’ in Contemporary
Art”, Third Text, January 13, Vol 27, Issue 1, 17-28.
7
Lucy Lippard. 2021. I See/You Mean. Dedication page. New Documents, Los Angeles, CA.
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23

24
Puffer Fish Form
Acrylic on canvas
150 x 110 cm

25

26
Turtle Form
Acrylic on canvas
150 x 110 cm

27

28
Water Caltrop Form
Acrylic on canvas
150 x 110 cm

29

30
Water Mimosa Form
Acrylic on canvas
150 x 110 cm

31

32

33

34
Morning Glory Form
Acrylic on canvas
120 x 80 cm

35

36
Layers of Water Form
Acrylic on canvas
120 x 80 cm

37

38
Tadpole Form
Acrylic on canvas
120 x 80 cm

39

40
Stamen Form
Acrylic on canvas
120 x 80 cm

41

42
Fish Form
Acrylic on canvas
120 x 80 cm

43

44
Water Celery Form
Acrylic on canvas
120 x 80 cm

45

46
Big Wave Small Wave Form
Acrylic on canvas
120 x 80 cm

47

48
Mussel Form
Acrylic on canvas
120 x 80 cm

49

50
Hyacinth Form
Acrylic on canvas
120 x 80 cm

51

52

53

54
Reptil Form
Acrylic on canvas
90 x 60 cm

55

56
Spiral Snail Shell Form
Acrylic on canvas
90 x 60 cm

57

58
Water Flows Back and Forth Form
Acrylic on canvas
90 x 60 cm

59

60
Water Lily Form
Acrylic on canvas
90 x 60 cm

61

62
River Clam Form
Acrylic on canvas
90 x 60 cm

63

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THAN Sok
Né en 1984 à Takeo, Cambodge
Il vit et travaille à Phnom Penh.
Expositions personnelles
2019 Currents (Courants), Richard Koh Fine Art, Singapour
2018 Objects of Belief (Objets de Croyance), Rosewood Art Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodge
2017 Klah Klok, (Jeu de dés), SA SA BASSAC, Phnom Penh, Cambodge
2015 Objects of Belief, Insider Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodge
2013 Promotion, SA SA BASSAC, Phnom Penh, Cambodge
2012 The Halo of the Omnipresent Eye (le Halo de l’Oeil Omniprésent), SA SA BASSAC,
Phnom Penh, Cambodge
2010 Tragedy (Tragédie), Centre Bophana, Phnom Penh, Cambodge
Expositions de groupe (sélection)
2021 The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT10), Queensland Art Gallery/
Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
2019 Sans Titre (Performance), Sa Sa Art Projects, Phnom Penh, Cambodge
2018 Elevations Laos, i:cat gallery, Vientiane, Laos
A Beast, a God, and a Line, (Une bête, un Dieu et une Ligne) Parasite,
Hong Kong / Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh / Myanm/art, Yangon,
Myanmar / Musée d’Art Moderne, Varsovie, Pologne
2017 When the River Reverses, (Quand la Rivière Change de Sens), Sa Sa Art Projects,
Phnom Penh, Cambodge
SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia from 1980 to today,
(Bain de Soleil, Art Contemporain d’Asie du Sud-Est), Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japon
Net Present Value, Art Stage Singapore Forum Exhibition, Singapour
2016 ASIA NOW Paris Asian Art Fair avec SA SA BASSAC, Paris, France
2015 Haunted Thresholds, Spirituality In Contemporary Southeast Asia,
(Passages Hantés, Spiritualité dans l’Asie du Sud-Est Contemporaine),
Kunstverein Gottingham, Allemagne
Seconde Biennale Chine-ASEAN, Chine
2014 Conscious Realities (Réalités Conscientes), Open Studio, San Art, Ho Chi Minh Ville,
Vietnam
Rescue Archaeology: The Body and the Lens in the City,
(Archéologie Préventive : le Corps et l’Objet dans la Ville) SA SA BASSAC,
Phnom Penh, Cambodge
2013 Phnom Penh: Rescue Archaeology, Contemporary Art and Urban Change in
Cambodia,
(Phnom Penh : Archéologie préventive, Art Contemporain et Mutations Urbaines au
Cambodge), IFA, Berlin et Stuttgart, Allemagne
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2012 Riverscapes IN FLUX, (Paysages fluviaux EN MUTATION) Goethe Institute,
Hanoï, Ho Chi Min Ville, Manille, Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Jakarta
2011 Video, An Art, A History, From the Collections of the Singapore Art Museum and du
Centre Pompidou, (La Vidéo ; un art, une histoire, Collections du Singapore Art Mu-
-seum et Centre Pompidou) Singapore Art Museum, Singapour
2010 Accumulations, Centre Culturel Français, Phnom Penh, Cambodge
2009 Forever Until Now: Contemporary Art from Cambodia,
(A Jamais Jusqu’à Aujourd’hui, Art Contemporain du Cambodge)
10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong
2007 In Transition, (En Transition)
Reyum Art Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodge
2005 Graduation Paintings, (Peintures pour le Diplôme) Reyum Art Gallery, Phnom Penh,
Cambodge
2003 The Sovannasom Cheadok, Reyum Art Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodge
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Lyvann Loeuk et Yves Zlotowski remercient :
Than Sok
Erin Gleeson
Many Sin
Soth Sary
Mok Rotha
Crédit photo :
Prum Ero
Impression :
e-center
Malakoff (FRANCE)
Reproductions photographiques :
Courtesy de l’artiste et Batia Sarem Gallery
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