Sketches of life, death and genocide

"No.02 Lon Nol Soldiers ordered to lay down weapons & strip off army uniform" by Bun Heang Ung

It's been 38 years since Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge, but the people who lived through it will always remember.

Bun Heang Ung was a political cartoonist during the Lon Nol regime, survived the Khmer Rouge, fled Vietnamese occupation and eventually found refuge in Australia. (The Radio Australia interview is worth listening to for the discussion on whether his political cartoons are racist.)

To chronicle his experience, he created 90 detailed black-and-white ink illustrations that were published in "Murderous Revolution: Life and Death in Pol Pot's Kampuchea." As that was in 1986, it's long been out of print (though pirate copies reportedly can be found in Cambodia). But instead of reprinting it, in 2008 he uploaded all the illustrations to a blog called Khmer Rouge Toons.

Other political cartoons are available on his blog. (He's not a fan of the current administration, and he's not subtle.)

A collection of Bun Heang Ung's work is also hosted at the Australian National University.

On mushrooms and art

I recently interviewed artist Sakhon Nhek for Khmerican.com. You can find the interview on YouTube, but Ms. Nhek and I had a wide-ranging discussion that was a bit too wide to include in the final version.

Fascinating bits of material often end up in the dustbin for minor reasons. There's a finite amount of space and time, whether it be for a story, photos or video.

In this case, I wanted to rescue and post a few minutes of the artist's explanation of what inspired this particular work of art. For more of her work, visit her site.

Andrew Hem: 'Paint like there's no tomorrow'

Andrew Hem's book, Dreams Towards Reality, will be published by Zero Plus Publishing in August.

Understanding art and artists

It's always interesting to talk to artists about why and how they create their work.

What Cambodian or Khmerican artists do you think are worth following? Leave some names in the comments.

'How we can influence the world'

Ritchie Kong's first art show is March 10, 2012. Any other aspiring Cambodian-American artists out there?