Exhibition of 22-year-old’s work reflects a difficult childhood and a sense of duty
The exhibition “Waiting for Sunrise,” opening Wednesday at Phnom Penh’s Romeet Gallery, is that of a highly talented artist who has a great deal to say.
Hour Seyha’s paintings speak of his struggle to help his parents support his eight brothers and sisters.
And yet his acrylic paintings carry no bitterness or resentment, but simply reflect his feelings about his family and their situation.
“I’m the oldest son in the family. So I have a duty to help my parents who have worked hard to feed us,” the 22-year-old artist explained Friday.
His sense of duty made him drop out of school in the 7th grade and cross illegally into Thailand to hire himself out as a child laborer at a rubber plantation.
The trek from his home near Battambang City into Thailand was hard because he had to hide from the military on both sides of the border, he said.
“I walked with more than 300 Cambodians. We hid in the jungle during the day and walked at night. We had little food, and it had to last a long time,” he said.
In Thailand, Mr. Seyha said, “There were 10 kids my age working together in a field with 20 older workers.”
He carried rubber tree logs, cleared the undergrowth on the plantation, looked after the cattle and harvested peppers.
It was backbreaking work, Mr. Seyha recalled. After six months, he was ready to return: Not only did he want to go back to school, but he was not making enough money in Thailand to send to his family.
On his way back, he was arrested in Thailand just before he could cross the border at Poipet and spent three days in jail before being deported to Cambodia. Because he had worked as a child laborer, the International Organization for Migration sent him to the NGO Happy Children, which is next door to the art school NGO Phare Ponleu Selpak in Battambang City.
That was in late 2005. Mr. Seyha is now at the fourth-year level in Phare’s visual arts program.
This exhibition will be his first solo show.
In his painting “My mother is sick,” the face of a woman is blurred by fine streaks of paint as if they were tears, the image done in a blend of soft reddish brown, yellow and dark gray.
In another painting, his father, who is a soldier, is shown with a rifle in his hand, a bag on his back and in full stride, the impressionist-style painting projecting the image of a man moving with determination.
The work “What can I do” depicts a face in abstract form suggesting a person who has yet to emerge and find his way. Painted in sharp lines mainly in muted brown and yellow, it features a thong sandal, which indicates that the person still has a long road to walk.
Mr. Seyha was born in 1989 in the refugee camp Site B managed by Funcinpec in Thailand. Two years later, the Paris Peace Agreement was signed and Cambodians in Thailand were able to return home.
Today, Mr. Seyha’s family is still desperately poor, and his goal is to make sure that his siblings can afford to go school, he said.
The exhibition at Romeet Gallery on Street 178 in Phnom Penh will open Wednesday at 6 p.m. The artist will also give a talk at the gallery on Dec. 17 at 1 p.m.
