Embers

Embers, 2017 is part of the Relief series that saw Pich return to his roots in painting in his sculptural practice.  Trained in painting in the United States, Pich discovered sculpture upon his return to Cambodia in 2002.  For these relief works, his approach is not about creating images but rather “building” a painting.

For Embers, 2017, Pich uses the same local materials that have defined his sculptural practice, creating a square frame with bent rattan and bamboo. He uses burlap fabric to cover the grid structure, applying paint, beeswax, and other materials on its surface.  The resulting work, with its black square form flecked with strokes of red paint that suggest a field fire, recalls the reductionist experiments of Kazimir Malevich and the Minimalist painters he inspired and the rich history of Western landscape painting. Pich’s focus on process and materiality offers a uniquely Cambodian perspective to the way contemporary painting and sculpture might be viewed and understood.