Artist Detail | Ilham Gallery
Sopheap Pich
1971, Cambodia
Sopheap Pich
1971, Cambodia

Born in Battambang, Cambodia, in 1971, Pich moved with his family to the United States in 1984. After receiving his BFA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1995 and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999, he returned to Cambodia in 2002. There, he began working with local materials — bamboo, rattan, burlap, beeswax and earth pigments gathered from around Cambodia — to make sculptures inspired by bodily organs, vegetal forms, and abstract geometric structures. Pich’s childhood experiences during the genocidal conditions of late 1970s Cambodia had a lasting impact on his practice, and the themes of time, memory, and the body recur in his work. His sculptures stand out for their subtlety and power, combining a refinement of form with a visceral, emotive force.