A:<\/strong> I liked to paint and draw. I always painted on the ground. At home I didn\u2019t have books or anything, so I painted on any other surface I could find using whatever materials I could find. When I went to school, I always painted in my books or drew in them. Q: What was your childhood like?<\/strong><\/p>\n A:<\/strong> I was born in a refugee camp, Site 2, and we moved to Battambang when I was three years old. It was my father\u2019s home town. We were farmers. We didn\u2019t grow to sell, but we planted things we needed just for the family.<\/p>\n It was hard to make a living at the time in Cambodia, so when I was young, I went to work in Thailand with my mom. My mother worked in a factory and I worked there as well. After a little while I left and came back because I wanted to live my own life.<\/p>\n Q: How did you first come to Phare?<\/strong><\/p>\n A:<\/strong> I stopped going to public school around 2002, when I was 13 and I came to Phare Ponleu Selpak because a friend told me about it. He said there was an art school. And there was no other art school in Cambodia. \u00a0I started at Phare in 2003.<\/p>\n Q: What did you study at Phare?<\/strong><\/p>\n For me, I felt I wanted to be an artist. This is the way for me. Because I tried to do other things, like graphic design, and I can do it, but I don\u2019t like to sit in front of a computer. I can\u2019t sit there for a long time. When I paint on the computer, it\u2019s not free.<\/p>\n Q: What did you like about studying at Phare? What didn\u2019t you like?<\/strong><\/p>\n A:<\/strong> I like the way of life, the teachers. They would always tell us about things that make you stronger, like they would teach about the history of art, or someone, like Van Gogh. That\u2019s what I feel more interested in. Learning about artists.<\/p>\n I really didn\u2019t like taking exams. I also didn\u2019t like deadlines. I never finished my assignments on time. I was not very good student!<\/p>\n Q: What is so important about art to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n Because even if I lived my life and it was a good life, after ten years I would have nothing to show. So I wanted to make something.<\/p>\n When I work on art and when I look through my work, I feel different things, it reminds me of different times of my life and what it was like then. It feels good to have a record in this way.<\/p>\n Q: Is anyone else in your family an artist?<\/strong><\/p>\n A:<\/strong> My brother is not an artist, but he likes to draw also. My father is a musician, but just for life, not really as a professional. He plays traditional music. He\u2019s good. When I was a child, he always played and I loved it.<\/p>\n Q: What is like to be an artist?<\/strong><\/p>\n A:<\/strong> For me, I work by myself. Not really that I want to work by myself, I have no choice. Like I start first to work on art I didn\u2019t know anything, I just learned a bit from seeing some art and I thought I wanted to do that. And then trying to understand what I could do by my own hand. But after I feel stronger a bit. People must think that, not care what other people think. If you are interested in it, you just do it. If your heart is not enough, the challenge of painting or drawing is not important. The most important is what is in your heart, feeling energy and power.<\/p>\n Some students they graduate from school and learn good technique but in their heart and in their mind it is difficult to decide to do something. They are scared. Is this good or not? Always worrying. But when you\u2019re an artists you have to be strong and very passionate. It is very important to be like that.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard in Cambodia. Not many people understand about art. They understand about music, like singers. Even the painters, but only traditional painting. They don\u2019t understand modern art. And, for sure, material is difficult to find. I just use the things I can use. Sometimes if I have money I go to buy art in Thailand or something. When I graduated from school I painted with ash or anything that I could find.<\/p>\n Q: If you hadn\u2019t gone to Phare, would you still be an artist?<\/strong><\/p>\n A:<\/strong> Yes, I always wanted to be an artist. No matter what. Whether someone calls us artist or not, I just want to work. I want to share and sometimes it is selfish, thinking only of what makes me happy, but I want to show my way of thinking to other people.<\/p>\n But Phare gave me a place where I could learn. When I joined, I had stopped going to public school and didn\u2019t know what to do. If I didn\u2019t have Phare, I don\u2019t know where I would have gone.<\/p>\n Q: What are you working on right now?<\/strong><\/p>\n A<\/strong>: Right now I am working on an exhibition in Phnom Penh. It is modern paintings. I paint natural, not just the trees or something like that. It is just what I see occurring in the world. I paint about inside of you, the feeling of you that I see. If I paint a portait, I paint the inside, not the skin, not the clothes, but the inside.<\/p>\n Q: What are your dreams for the future?<\/strong><\/p>\n A:<\/strong> I still want to be an artist. I don\u2019t know. Right now, I want to be here in Cambodia because I want to show everything that I want to improve in the country. And I want to be an example to the younger generation. If someone wants to walk this way, I can show them, I can share experiences with them. And after they can do what they want.<\/p>\n I have plans, but if I have food to eat and paint to work it is enough for me. For my dream, I want to have a space to teach students and connect with people who really want to work on similar things.<\/p>\n Read more about Nov Cheanick’s work here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Read more about the symbolism in ‘Sokha’ here<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"406v\"](\"https:\/\/pharecircus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/406v-225x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"000000764_0\"](\"https:\/\/pharecircus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/000000764_0-300x200.jpg\")
A:<\/strong> I studied Visual Arts. After being there for one week, they held an exam and I did so well I went immediately to the second level.\u00a0 In the first level, it\u2019s only drawing with a pencil, but in the second level we studied watercolour, in the third there was oil and acrylic painting, and in the fourth we studied art history and we specialised. We could choose graphic design, or animation or whatever.<\/p>\n![\"11235437_824921614229318_716370334990145582_n\"](\"https:\/\/pharecircus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/11235437_824921614229318_716370334990145582_n-300x225.jpg\")
A:<\/strong> Life is like eating and sleeping and going to work. It wasn\u2019t enough for me and it wasn\u2019t something that I felt passionate about. I wanted to make something before I died that I felt good about, to show people, to leave something behind.<\/p>\n![\"la-solitude_11\"](\"https:\/\/pharecircus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/la-solitude_11-300x190.jpg\")
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