Untitled (The Tailors and the Mannequins)

Collections
1457601
Title
Untitled (The Tailors and the Mannequins)
Creator
Year/Period
1981
Region
Cambodia
Dimension
Image size: 83.0 x 60.0 cm,
Object size: 83.0 x 61.0 x 2.2 cm
,
Image size: 83.0 x 61.0 cm
Accession No.
2019-00779

You Khin (b. 1947, Cambodia; d. 2009, Cambodia) is believed to be the only Cambodian artist who was actively exhibiting before the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge period, who continued to professionally practice and exhibit during the ensuing decades. His work from the 1970s onwards has been consistently engaged with a cubist-like style of semi-abstraction, and with depicting urban scenes, often with an unsentimental focus on migrants and poverty as subject matter. Khin's biography is defined by his travels: living and working in Cambodia until 1973, then in France until 1977, then in Sudan until 1979, then in the Ivory Coast until 1981, then in Qatar until 1999, then in London until 2004, then in Cambodia until his death in 2009.The composition of this painting emphasises the long limbs, exaggerated shapes, and distinctive attire of the tailors depicted, as well as the rectilinear forms of the floor tiles and architectural features.