Kbach Teuk series 2024

The Kbach Teuk series is a reverence and reinvention of traditional water forms. Translating from Khmer to English as ‘water forms’, the paintings speak to the long and rich history of water as a symbol in Buddhist and Hindu narrative painting. The series continues the significance and traditions of ancient painting rituals, but Than imaginatively adapts and redefines the representation to form a contemporary illustration of water as the main subject matter. The four paintings exhibited demonstrate the meticulous process of Than’s grid work. Painting simple forms and symbols in repetition across the canvas, he blends the experience of painting with a spiritual meditative practice. Than notes 'the painting of a Kbach Teuk requires that we feel calm and that the breath draws in line with the movement of our hand so that all is smooth.'  The gradient of pastel colours establishes the water motif as the feature subject in the painting, imagining the canvas as pond or water body. In each Kbach Teuk painting, Than introduces a repeated secondary symbol providing additional variation and narrative. There are four secondary forms in this exhibition; morning glory flower, eel, frog and Madagascar periwinkle flower. The artist selected the animals and plants which live in the waters of Cambodia and depend on the nourishment and habitat to survive. The narrative that accompanies each form is invented by Than and based on personal memories, such as at the spiritual confluence of the Mekong and Tonlé Sap Rivers or the shared pond in his home village.