Chakra Oeur's sculptures spread across his beautiful garden.Chakra Oeur:"ONE WHO HAS NO FAITH IN HIMSELF IS DOOMED"
...BORN BETWEEN A MYSTICAL GAP OF HELL AND HEAVEN...A BEAUTIFUL SANDY ISLAND-KOS KSACH TONLIEA..!
Chanthou / Chakra / O'Bon
Chanthou Oeur, also known as O'bon or Chakra ,was born on a small beautiful sandy Island ( Kos Ksach Tonliea ) about 20 miles south-east of Phnom Penh the capital of Cambodia .Orphan at early age , he was raised by various foster families as well as by Buddhist Monks . He claims his most valuable learning came from his time spent in Buddhist Temples .
The social and political turmoil in his country led him to leave His native beloved contry Cambodia in the 1980's . Yet he fled his country firmly committed to makng " The world aware of the suffering life his homeland experienced under the communist and also to prove to the world the rich culture hidden within the dept of Cambodia's long glorious history ".
Once, after the Killing field, Oeur serving as a jungle freedom fighter against the Vietnam invasion and became refugee in Thailand where he seved as Art teachert and Art Director for the UNHCR and the IRC .Oeur and his family relocated in Maryland in 1981 .
His first art work in America was a painting of a Flat tire entitled "The Flat Tired" .That's how he felt upon his arrival ,and his first stone sculpture was a marble figure of Naga, the Khmer mythical snake with five heads,which gave him first prize in the local community college art gallery .
Self-taught , Chanthou oeur works in a variety of mediums, including stone , metal ,wood,plaster,cement,clay and paper .His art began,he relates,"Sometime so early in life, perhaps at the age of 2 or 3,when my hands started to coordinate with my eyes ."He has difficulty knowing "whether art is part of his life or his life part of his art. "
Chanthou oeur has spanned the globe with his extraordinary multi talents.His art shows his belief in mother nature and the profound balancing of the logical reality of life which he uses light against dark, rough against smooth to represent the cosmic truths-the Happyness and the Sadness .Taking a good close look at his art works,the world would have recognized the mixed beauty of the East with the West,the Classic with the Modern and they all are flowing, growing within one another in a single living motion to create Oeur's own unique artistic invention .
Over the last few decades Chanthou Oeur has participated in a number of exhibitions .He won the first prize at the global Cambodian Art festival in Longbeach California ,participated in the Smithsonian's Natural History exhibit Across the Seas and over the Mountains,took part in a Khmer arts exhibition at the Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History,presented his poetry and art at the Weisman Museum in Minneapolis,Minnesota in an exhibition entitled Facing Death ,Participated in the eighth annual Bridges and connections International Sculpture Symposium at the Andres Institute of Art in Brookline Newhamshire ... The piece of sculpture that he created will become part of the institute's collection, is title Snarm #6 ,the 6-feet hight sculpture feature scarlike pockmarks and holes cut through the granite to resemble bullet holes through imaginary houses ,temples walls, which were not imaginary at all in his beloved Native Country . Oeur enjoying extending his Art exhibitions and poetry readings to numerous places in America and in his native country Cambodia .
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