Vietnamese planes and Pol Pot soldiers in battle, 1979 1994

Svay Ken is one of few recognised Cambodian artists of his generation, after the widespread killing of artists and intellectuals under the Khmer Rouge (1975–79). Svay worked as a hotel porter in Phnom Penh until the Khmer Rouge took power, forcing him and his family into agrarian labour. In 1979, he resumed work at the hotel and, in 1993, took up painting, selling his works to hotel guests. While his paintings commonly depicted everyday Cambodian life, these rare examples capture the beginning and end of the Khmer Rouge period: the forced mass evacuation of Phnom Penh in 1975 and the invasion by the Vietnamese army in 1979, which toppled Pol Pot’s regime. They are important documents of life during this turbulent time, when much individual and collective memory was lost.