Cambodia
Cambodia, 1971
Sopheap Pich was born in 1971 in Battambang, Cambodia. He received a BFA from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) in 1995, which included one year at the Ecole national supérieure d’arts de Cergy, France. Followed by an MFA in painting from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999.
Pich left Cambodia with his family as refugees at the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. He lived in the USA from 1984 to 2002 when he returned to Cambodia where he has lived to this day. He transitioned from painting to sculpture in 2004 when he made his first sculpture in rattan. Through the years, other materials such as bamboo, beeswax, burlap, stone, wood, and metals were employed. His works speaks to issues of the body, nature and memory, taking inspirations from his home country, and from having lived and educated in the United States.
His work has been exhibited extensively in Asia, the United States, Europe and Australia. Pich has had solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2013, and has been included in many international exhibitions, including the 57th Venice Biennale (2017) and documenta 13, Kassel, Germany (2012), Singapore Biennale (2011), Asia Pacific Triennale (2009), the Guangju Biennale (2023), Setouchi Triennale (2022, 2025).
He has lived in Phnom Penh since his return to Cambodia in 2002. He is represented by Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tina Keng Gallery and Axel Vervoordt Gallery.
