Siem Reap’s dedicated band of fine artists continue emerging from their Covid bunkers and it seems that almost every week there’s a new exhibition in town, the latest being the FCC Angkor gallery’s showing of colourful works by locally renowned magic mural maker, Tamara Venn.

Her new exhibition is titled ‘Kaleidoscope’ and she explains, “the English word ‘kaleidoscope’ has roots in Greek, meaning ‘observation of beautiful changing patterns”.

“The fragile beauty of wild Cambodia allows us the opportunity to observe kaleidoscopes, and this series of paintings pays homage to the animals and flora around us – though often overlooked or ignored – and the fascinating, picturesque and often tender moments they evoke,” she says.

To say that Tamara is a bit of a nature freak is probably an understatement and her passion for the wild environment is evident in her exhibition, which is part of her mission to remind us all of the delicate nature of, nature.

“The works in this exhibition were inspired by my love of the simple elegance of the Cambodian countryside and its wildlife.

“From there, my inspiration has come to include Phnom Penh city scenes, the seaside around Kep and sites around the temples of Angkor. Connecting with nature is very important in my daily life and so vital to my work as an artist.

“The stunning richness of the natural world of Cambodia is often forgotten in its rapidly developing towns and cities and through these works, I want viewers to be able to pause and reconnect, however briefly, with that disappearing world.

“I hope that by doing so, we are reminded of the exquisite rarity of our natural environment,” she says.

While honouring the beauty, Tamara also warns that we are destroying the very nature that nurtures us.

“We have torn down and remade whole swathes of areas that were once wild and rich in plant and animal life.

“It is beyond clear that we must urgently reassess our relationship with our planet and recognize that the totality of life on it is bigger than us as a species.

“We need to accept that it was the natural world that first enabled us to survive and then prosper.

“I hope these painted representations of our planet’s astonishing and quickly-vanishing forms of life remind us of that,” she says.

To that end, a percentage of sales from the exhibition will be donated to The Angkor Centre for Conservation of Biodiversity, the first nature conservation centre in Cambodia and as Tamara enthuses, “An incredible organisation with an invaluable cause.”

Tamara first came to Siem Reap in 2014 to visit her brother who owned a spa, and shortly after her arrival she saw an Apsara show.

Having worked in fashion earlier in her career – she designed panels for the launch of Lily Allen’s vintage clothing shop in Harvey Nichols, an English luxury department store chain – she decided to start painting a collection of Apsaras based around the Cambodian concept of “days of the week” special clothing colours based on the belief that each weekday corresponds with a planet, and each planet having its own colour.

But making murals has been her main call – she’s a graduate of the prestigious Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design in London,  and was a mural assistant to the high-profile British artist Jo Peel who herself exhibited at FCC only last month.

While finishing her detailed work on the Apsara series, she returned to London in May 2014 to assist in the painting of a 300-metre commemorative mural at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

But, having endured a grim London winter, she returned to Siem Reap on a successful mission to brighten up the town with murals, so successful that she had a lemongrass-infused gin-based cocktail named after her, the “Tamara”, at the Wild Creative Bar and Eatery, where she painted three murals which she said established her name and cemented her reputation.

One of those murals became her favourite work and having a cocktail named after her, was she claimed, “one of the greatest honours I could ask for”.

Another break came her way when she was commissioned to design and paint a mural on the walls of the new upmarket Heritage Walk shopping mall about 18 months ago when Siem Reap had been rendered into a dust bowl during the road works and beatification campaign.

The Heritage Walk people had seen a Facebook posting of a six-meter-tall painting Tamara had been commissioned to make in the summer.

They liked the work’s colour and nature-centric fun, thinking it would brighten the mall’s public area.

The forest and the countryside surrounding the Angkor Archaeological Park highlighting the Cambodian flora and fauna became the theme of the mural, but Tamara also wanted to be more than just a pretty picture brightening up a shopping area so she added an information board explaining each animal, bird and plant depicted in the mural.

Tamara is now been gearing up for a busy 2023, with another exhibition in the making.

“I already have my next series of paintings in mind and I hope to begin working on those in the coming year,” she says. “I would love to have a second exhibition ready to show by summertime, and of course painting bigger and bigger murals.”

Prints of her work are also on sale at the Satu Concept Store in the FCC Angkor riverside strip.a