A celebration of Cambodian culture

By Michael Lafleur
02/10/2008

NORTH ANDOVER -- It may seem odd to some that an elite boarding school in leafy North Andover would shed light on the efforts of Lowell-based Cambodian-American artists.

But Marie Costello, director of the Robert Lehman Art Center at the Brooks School in North Andover, said the private high school's location made it a perfect fit for an exhibition like "Celebrating Cambodia."

Costello is aware of the plight of Cambodian artists, who suffered mightily under the genocidal, communist Khmer Rouge regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to '79.

The Khmer Rouge targeted and killed most of that Southeast Asian nation's artisans in their disastrously failed attempt to remake Cambodia into an agrarian utopia.

With Lowell nearby and home to so many Cambodian immigrants, Costello said she wanted to help keep that artistic culture alive.

"After the brutal attempt to destroy the culture by the Khmer Rouge ... it should be counteracted by gathering together these artists to celebrate both the traditional art forms and the contemporary arts of Cambodia," she said. "We are so near to this community, and it's just important to keep it on our minds."

The show began Jan. 4 and runs through Saturday. It features the work of Lowell-based painter Chantha Khem and Lowell-based sculptor Yary Livan, as well as that of Cambodian artists Duong Saree and Thhim Sothy, and Eleanor Briggs, a New Hampshire photographer.

Costello said Saree is one of only a handful of female professors at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. She has been at the forefront of preserving traditional art forms there.

Sothy is a former student of Saree's. His earlier paintings are done in the traditional Cambodian style of concrete images and scenes, Costello said, while his newer work adds abstraction.

"It's sort of a swirling mystical feel to the work, which is really exciting," she said.

Khem, 40, hails from Phnom Penh. He has been living in Lowell for the past two years and currently resides in the city's Highlands with his wife and two daughters. He has been in the United States for five years.

Trained at the Royal University of Fine Arts, he is a full-time painter. Most of his work focuses on everyday life in Cambodia, particularly that of rural peasant farmers.

In an interview last week translated by his 16-year-old daughter, Linda, a Lowell High School sophomore, Khem said Cambodia's countryside is "how an everyday life should be, and it still is right now, especially for regular people."

He said his goal is "carry the culture of Cambodia to continue on to other generations."

Meanwhile, Livan, in an interview translated by his wife and fellow artist, Nary Tith, said he prefers the challenge of working with clay.

Livan, 54, and Tith have four children ages 13, 20, 21 and 23.

"Working with clay, you need water. You need fire. You need oxygen," he said.

"It's the same as our lives. Also, because we take a lot of time and energy to work with the clay, sometimes when you're finished, the piece did not come out what we expected. It's like ... life, too. Sometimes, we try all the best but it doesn't work out."