"Khmer Dance 1-5"
11X14
Drawn: August 2004

(five) Numbered Prints $250:
(five) Framed Numbered Prints $450: (Currently selling print #1)
Original: contact me

This is based on a Cambodian (Khmer) dance I had the please to see this summer at Grand Performances in Los Angeles. I was entranced and had the idea for this picture, then it morphed into five drawings. Each one has a specific meaning and I'll try to explain them here.

This is the picture of the dance and the dancers. The raw image. The rest of the images were started with a hand copy from this image.

This image represets the sound and the music.

This represents the lighting. The atmosphere was incredible with bright green and purple lights focused on the background.

This represents the overall feeling from the dancers and the feeling of flowing water and warm sun that they made me feel while watching. The stage was built over a fountain, so it was sort of floating on water and the lower half of this picture sort of represents this.

This ties all the other images together by representing something from each of the other four. It also adds two more elements and that is the culture. The Cambodian culture was basically devistated by the Khmer Rouge killing four million people. Anyone with any education or ties to cultural and government infrastructure was killed. The 'lightning' represents the pain of the culture, but then watching the dancers you have such a strong feeling of hope that the culture will survive coming from them. That is represented by the 'rays' sprouting from each of the dancers. Hope.

Probably a bunch of hogwash. This is my favorite drawing I've done to date.

This is a picture of this piece framed