Oeur Sokuntevy

Oeur Sokuntevy (born 1983) is a Berlin-based artist from Cambodia.

Life Brought up in the country region of Battambang where took up studies in Phare Ponleu Selpak art school, she learnt how to paint using oil and water colour as well as refining her pencil skills. In December 2007, she met Dana Langlois, a fellow artist who owned the java café and gallery who also let Oeur have her first show which she earned money from. In February 2008, she moved to Phnom Penh to become a professional artist. Her parents were not supportive of her career choice at the beginning with Sokuntevy saying in an interview that they threw all her art away, and instead wanted her to be a woman adhering to the traditional norms in Cambodia and therefore lived with her aunt. Later in 2015, Sokuntevy moved to Berlin with her husband to learn about the art there and meet other artists as well as to show people Cambodian living and culture through her painting.

Art Sokuntevy's art follows the surrealism movement. Although her art takes a modern approach, some elements of appreciation of traditional Cambodian art can be found in her work such as her use of bold shapes and color. At first however while she lived in Battambang, although the medium she used, coffee with paper, was unique, the ideas she depicted were traditional. When she moved to Phnom Penh in 2007, her experiences with people, learning a different language, and travelling led her to morph her style into a surrealism approach. Sokuntevy's art depicts things and situations found in everyday life and according to her, "what is happening here" such as families, women and the limitations faced by them in Cambodia, life in Cambodia, and Khmer values with a satirical take. Tevy's used medium nowadays are paint however she has experimented with different mediums such as sculptural works made from rattan, bamboo, coffee, paint and homemade paper in her second solo exhibition in 2007.

Themes in Sokuntevy's art Throughout all her painting and exhibitions, Sokuntevy expresses a theme. In her exhibition Ping vey, the theme Tevy's understanding of the "Cambodia of today". Lost together is an art work from the exhibition titled Ping Vey. The painting depicts a man and a woman in the form of pigs which is a reference to Sokuntevy's Zodiac sign. Her paintings show a variety of homosexual love from the tender to the graphic with Sokuntevy stating that "In Cambodia no one knows about men with men, they think its dirty" and further explaining her views. "I was shocked when I first saw them too, but I don't think they're wrong, they can love each other too." "I feel the situation between the men and women is a bit unfair: women have to work, cook, and take care of the children; and men sometimes have it easier" explains Sokuntevy as to why the theme was prevalent in this exhibition.

In 2010, at the Institute Francaise, Sokuntevy displayed her second exhibition called Love to Death, challenging social norms in relation to love from the perspective of women. and City Life Berlin which depicts "people rush to climb into a bus, obviously cold in their sweaters and scarves. The top of the bus becomes a surreal scene of people having coffee or casually working on computers with their torsos turning into a multicolor mist."