Culture & Arts: Dina Chhan brings the Khmer village to Rosewood Phnom Penh

From 29 August to 30 September, the gallery at Rosewood Phnom Penh is showing "Roots of the Village", an exhibition of paintings and ceramics by Dina Chhan devoted to rural life in Cambodia.

Water bird gliding over swirling blue water, oil on canvas by Dina Chhan

The title says most of it. For "Roots of the Village", Dina Chhan has brought together oils and acrylics, along with a series of ceramics mounted on pieces of locally sourced mango wood. There are markets, fishing boats on the Tonle Sap, farmers in the rice fields, buffaloes, fish, birds. Nothing spectacular in the subjects, and that is the point: to show what has kept the country going all along, far from the towers of the capital, even as the exhibition hangs in one of them.

Twenty years of work

Dina Chhan is no stranger to Phnom Penh. Born in the capital in 1984, she spent part of her childhood in a refugee camp near Poipet before coming back to the city and training, notably at the International School of Phnom Penh, where she later taught drawing to children. She has also given classes in several orphanages.

Her early work centred on wildlife and plants, birds and fish above all, in very bold colours. She was the only Cambodian woman artist to take part in a United Nations programme on landmines, which took her to the worst-affected provinces of the north-west. In 2015 she received the CLMTV Contemporary Art Award at Mahasarakham University in Thailand, and the following year Cambodian Living Arts selected her for its Fellows programme. She has since exhibited in Australia, Colombia, France, the United States, China, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. In 2021, Sofitel Phnom Penh Phokeethra hosted "Fly No Fear", a series on threatened natural habitats. She opened her own gallery in 2022.

Painting upside down

Anyone who has watched Dina Chhan at work knows she does not paint like everyone else. She regularly turns her canvas over, rotates it, refuses straight lines. She says she does not want to know what the picture will look like before it is finished. What matters to her is meaning: a painting with a strong idea behind it will stand up even if the technique is not perfect.

For years she heard from people around her that there was no future in art, no market, no money. She worked other jobs and drew in the evenings, on her veranda. Many of her canvases show Cambodian women with their heads slightly bowed, no tears, no pathos. That lowered gaze has become one of her trademarks.

Woman's face in profile emerging from textured blue paint, work by Dina Chhan

What comes next

The exhibition opens a busy season for the Rosewood gallery, which seems keen to make room for Cambodian artists. Chim Sothy takes over in October and November with "Heritage". From December to February, "Trilogy" brings together Din, Ponleu and Linda Schroeter, curated by Tribe Art Gallery. Nadal and Eric Raisin follow in spring 2027, then Li Ming Hang with "Khmer Everyday Life" from June.

Practical details

"Roots of the Village", Dina Chhan

Until 30 September 2026

Art Gallery, Rosewood Phnom Penh, Vattanac Capital Tower, 66 Monivong Boulevard

Tel.: +855 23 936 888