A series of works by artist Leang Seckon entitled “Goodbye,
Cambodia,” honoring the late King Norodom Sihanouk, will be displayed in
Singapore from Thursday.
In one work entitled “Seven-Day Mourning,” the late King Father is
sketched in blue-grey acrylic against a patterned backdrop. His image
seems to float on the surface of the artwork, which consists of hundreds
of small images of the Buddha set on dark red or blue backgrounds with
gold borders.
The work portrays the King in a way that conveys his humanity but at
the same time creates around him a larger-than-life aura befitting a man
who wrote pages of the country’s history and whose actions will be
debated by researchers for a very long time.
Looking closely, one notices that the sketch’s background is actually
made up of incense-stick wrappers dropped in front of the Royal Palace
by mourners who came to pay their respect to the late King during the
seven-day mourning period following his death last October.
The series—named after a song that King Sihanouk composed several
decades ago and sang during one of his last stays to Cambodia—consists
of four large collages and will be exhibited during Art Stage Singapore,
a four-day art fair opening Thursday during which 130 art galleries
from 23 countries are expected to showcase 600 artists.
Mr. Seckon, who is one of Cambodia’s leading artists with an
international following, said he had first planned to produce a series
on the theme of environmental protection for the fair. But when the King
passed away, he decided to create works that would honor him.
Mr. Seckon was in the countryside on October 15 when the news spread
that King Sihanouk had passed away. He immediately rushed to Phnom Penh.
As he joined the thousands of people who had come to pay their
respects at the Royal Palace he noticed that, as they were unwrapping
their bundles of incense sticks, they were dropping the wrappers
decorated with images of the Buddha on the ground. “I started to collect
the labels…thinking that this held a good meaning,” he said.
Each night of the 7-day period, Mr. Seckon went back to collect more
discarded wrappers, and later used them to create the vast mosaic on
which he sketched the face of the late King.
Another work in the series is entitled “Paradise of King Sihanouk,” a
collage that includes photographs of the King at different periods of
his life placed on a grey background of sea and sky meant to convey that
the King is now in Heaven. “He is in a beautiful place and can look
over Cambodia again,” Mr. Seckon explained.
The third work is called “Goodbye Cambodia,” another collage with a
photo of the late King among pictures of other international leaders
along with imagery of world religions. “Peaceful, to celebrate the end
of a time,” Mr. Seckon said.
“Power of Man,” the last painting, is about what people can
accomplish when they are determined to use their talent. Beside King
Sihanouk’s image, there are depictions of international icons such as
American singer Elvis Presley.
The destructive side of human beings is illustrated by the photo of
Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, who ran the Khmer Rouge torture center
Tuol Sleng: He is shown plunging to the ground head first with an
assault rifle in his hands.
King Sihanouk has often featured in Mr. Seckon’s works over the
years. As a singer, he has always been fascinated by Cambodia’s popular
songs of the 1960s during which the late King was at the helm of the
country. Moreover Mr. Seckon, who was born in 1970, has been revisiting
his childhood memories of U.S. bombings during the civil war of the
early 1970s, creating series of mixed-media works and installations
about the decades prior to the Khmer Rouge regime.
His series “Goodbye, Cambodia” is presented at Art Stage Singapore by the British gallery Rossi and Rossi.
“Seckon’s work touches people at different levels,” said gallery
owner Fabio Rossi in an e-mail Tuesday. “There is an immediate, striking
visual impact which generates a lot of attention. At the same time, the
content of his paintings is very meaningful and inspiring.”
Asked whether this series was a way to say farewell to King
Sihanouk—who will be cremated on February 4—Mr. Seckon replied that it
was meant to better remember him. The King’s very identity is part of
Cambodia’s fabric, he said. “I don’t want us to lose him.”
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