Vann Nath - painter
Contact: c/o CVCD: cvcd@forum.org.kh
Vann
Nath was born in 1946 in Battambang.
His art training was through apprenticeship
with a local sign painter. Before
the war, he painted movie posters
and portraits. The fact that Vann
Nath's background was non-traditional
helped spare his life during the Pol
Pot regime. In 1978 he was sent to
Tuol Sleng Prison ("S-21")
in Phnom Penh, where he was tortured
and nearly killed. Fortunately, his
talents were discovered in time, and
the Khmer Rouge asked him to paint
many propaganda portraits of Pol Pot.
At the end of the war Vann Nath was
one of the seven survivors of Tuol
Sleng, where nearly 20,000 people
died.
In 1979 Vann Nath was asked by the new government to paint pictures of the prison tortures for the world to know the secret horrors of the "Killing Fields." These moving works hang in the prison-turned-museum today, and are unforgettable for all visitors. In 1998 Vann Nath wrote A Prison Portrait: One Year in the Khmer Rouge's S-21, published by White Lotus Press.
Only recently has Vann Nath returned to painting. The most important project for him now is to have his design for an elderly housing complex in Battambang realized. This, he says, is to help those older Cambodians whose children died in the war, thus leaving no one to care for them. This project has recently been published in Ingrid Muan's article "A Small Start: Vann Nath's Plan for an Old People's Home in Battambang, Cambodia" (Persimmon, Summer, 2001).
A recent painting by Vann Nath, The Village of My Birth, appeared in Reyum Gallery's 2000 exhibition, "The Legacy of Absence: A Cambodian Story." It has a peaceful, happy note, in contrast to the earlier works he painted to document his prison experience.
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Artist in His Cell, acrylic on canvas, ca. 1980 |
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Classroom Turned Prison, acrylic on canvas, ca. 1980 |
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Mother and Child, acrylic on canvas, ca. 1980 |
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Water Torture, acrylic on canvas, ca. 1980 |
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Water Torture site, photograph 2001, A.W.Norton |
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Nail-pulling Torture, acrylic on canvas, ca. 1980 |
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Electricity and Water Torture, acrylic on canvas, ca. 1980 | |
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Toul Sleng Prison, photograph 2001, A.W.Norton | |
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The Village of My Birth, oil on canvas, 1998, 210x132cm (image courtesy of Reyum Gallery and Vann Nath) |