Тheam's Gallery

This guide to Theam's Gallery in Siem Reap follows Lim Muy Theam, a boy from Takeo province who fled to France as a refugee after the Khmer Rouge scattered a generation of Cambodian craftsmen, and who later chose to come home. It traces his years as artistic director at Artisans d'Angkor before he opened this studio in 2011 to keep training apprentices in wood, lacquer, silk and cotton himself. Stand at the tables and watch the hands at work, sanding lacquer down through its layers or building color onto raw timber, techniques passed on one apprentice at a time. Theam's own paintings, farmers, monks on their rounds, hang on the walls around the workshop.