Anya Minko’s Rising With the Sun 2026, an acrylic on canvas painting. Photo provided.
PHNOM PENH – An exhibition next month titled Tonle to Treeline promises a rare chance for the public to view nearly 40 works on natural ecosystem themes.
The exhibition will feature acrylic paintings, watercolors and metal sculptures.
Australian artist Anya Minko and Cambodian artists Hom Rith and Ouk Vichet aim to raise awareness of environmental concerns by helping visitors to see aspects of the natural landscape and share responsibility for protecting them.
Minko, who is also event curator, said she has lived along the Tonle Sap River since 1996, and her experience there has shaped how she sees the world.
She said the river and the forest sustain the lives of people and animals, so she titled the exhibition Tonle to Treeline to show that everything is interconnected and interdependent.
“Having watched Cambodia change over the years, this exhibition is both a personal reflection and a call to value and protect the environments that sustain us,” she said.
Minko also spends time traveling and cycling across provinces, which inspires her to capture the feeling of the environment rather than the visuals of a specific location.
Her techniques include moving between abstraction and figuration through bold color palettes and intricate patterns.
Hom Rith, a watercolor artist, will display his works on the changing landscape of natural surroundings while highlighting biodiversity and lesser-known habitats.
Caption
Ouk Vichet, a metal sculpture artist and professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, will display the same theme of nature but in the contemporary sculpture way.
His technique helps give a second life to old metal by sculpting it into beautiful pieces.
Minko said this is her first time as both artist and curator of a group exhibition. The collaboration is thanks to the artists who trust her vision and Rosewood Phnom Penh.
She said the exhibition can bring together strong contemporary artists, and displaying works at the Rosewood Gallery venue can create a memorable exhibition.
She hopes visitors look closely at art that creates space for reflection and then change their thinking or be inspired to explore the country’s ecosystem further than the exhibition.
“Everything in this ecosystem is connected, from land, water, forests, wildlife, and people,” she said.
“I hope this exhibition opens a conversation about that connection and about our shared responsibility to value and protect Cambodia’s natural environment.”
The exhibition has a total of 37 works, including paintings, metal sculptures and an additional set of limited single-edition prints.
Tonle to Treeline will open publicly on March 20 and run to May 31 at Rosewood Gallery, Rosewood Phnom Penh. It will be open 24 hours and seven days per week.
