Long Sophea was among the most prominent and influential artists in Cambodia during the late 1990s and early 2000s, a period which saw the emergence of new artistic approaches (“contemporary art”) there, as well as the re-entry of Cambodia into regional and global networks for art, such as biennales, after decades of isolation due to civil war and genocide. During this period, Sophea was the only exhibiting artist in Cambodia working in textiles, and also the most prominent artist in Cambodia who was a woman. Sophea was also one of the only women among a group of around 25 Cambodian artists sent for postgraduate study in the former Soviet Union. She studied in Moscow, writing a Masters dissertation in Russian on aspects of textile arts and Khmer aesthetics, and graduating from the from the Moscow Institute of Industrial and Fine Arts in 1992. The Value of Life was included in Long Sophea’s solo exhibition, Batik: Hand Painting on Silk, held at Phnom Penh’s prestigious Reyum Institute in 2000. It was one of the largest works in that exhibition. Only the second solo show held at the newly opened Reyum Institute, Sophea’s exhibition had a notable and lasting impact on a new generation of artists in Cambodia at the time. Hand painted on silk using layers of dyes applied over layers of wax, the work is a semi-abstract depiction of leaves and organic matter. It eschews explicit visual references to Cambodian aesthetics, however the repetition of lines and circular forms recalls the codified system of Khmer ornamentation, known as kbach racana, which the artist had studied. The artist explained that the intertwined leaves in the artwork “stand for relationships of all sorts, both human and natural” and that “I wanted to show the fragility of life…its unpredictability.” Viewed from a distance, the work is an impressionistic wash of warm colours. Up close, a plethora of infinitesimal details emerge, including lines of varying thicknesses rendered in cooler tones, as well as traces of brushstrokes left during the laborious process of the work’s creation. The handmade qualities in the work become analogous to the organic qualities of nature.
