A SMALL PART, 2017, Tini Art Space, Cambodia

A SMALL PART, solo exhibition, 25 September – 3 November 2017

Nov Cheanick’s series arrives at Tini at a fitting moment. The six paintings in A Small Part arrive just a few days after Pchum Ben and depart with the arrival of Omtuk (Water Festival) in early November. The five weeks of the exhibition thus coincide with the final weeks of the Rainy Season, framed by two uniquely Cambodian holidays steeped in ritual. The former is marked by a period of ritual gathering while the latter celebrates the ritual change in the flow of the river. Both emphasize the collectivity of community or nature over the individual. Cheanick’s exhibit turns to those natural forms which may persist: trees, fields, landscapes. A wider body of nature which crosses borders, cultures, and societies.

With A Small Part, Cheanick pushes the viewer to consider the elements that together create the vastness of the world. The good, the bad, the beautiful, the hideous — for Cheanick, they all make up the details of his larger vision. He asks what do the small parts in lives, in rituals, in landscapes, in flows form once brought together ?

Daniel Mattes, curator.