This nervous albeit heroic leap towards an alternative practice/artistic identity can be observed in Tith Kanitha’s seventeen paintings -- her first foray into the watercolour medium. For Tith, this series was about letting go; it was about loving the experiment and developing a commitment to that first unspecific direction of the brush. For the artist who typically produces wire-work sculptures, the realisation that such a turn was even possible came a short while ago during her residency at the Rijksacademie from 2019 to 2021. In the company of her fellow artists, Tith found herself in a space where she was no longer questioned about her identity, as a Cambodian artist or more generally about what she as an artist hoped to achieve. Such a disconnection from the personal and the political became a moment to expand, or as she calls it, to free herself from a “survival mode” known intimately by the children of postwar Cambodia. The result is this series of affecting pictures, exploding gestures by the unburdened artist hoping with each sequence to find out how long she can sustain this freeform approach. And in each billow of pigment across the water, we pay witness to watercolour’s ability to absorb the artist’s emancipation into the privacy of its otherwise obstinate puddles.
This nervous albeit heroic leap towards an alternative practice/artistic identity can be observed in Tith Kanitha’s seventeen paintings -- her first foray into the watercolour medium. For Tith, this series was about letting go; it was about loving the experiment and developing a commitment to that first unspecific direction of the brush. For the artist who typically produces wire-work sculptures, the realisation that such a turn was even possible came a short while ago during her residency at the Rijksacademie from 2019 to 2021. In the company of her fellow artists, Tith found herself in a space where she was no longer questioned about her identity, as a Cambodian artist or more generally about what she as an artist hoped to achieve. Such a disconnection from the personal and the political became a moment to expand, or as she calls it, to free herself from a “survival mode” known intimately by the children of postwar Cambodia. The result is this series of affecting pictures, exploding gestures by the unburdened artist hoping with each sequence to find out how long she can sustain this freeform approach. And in each billow of pigment across the water, we pay witness to watercolour’s ability to absorb the artist’s emancipation into the privacy of its otherwise obstinate puddles.

Words by Denise Lai