“I art and fart with a big heart.”
An artist of the figure and a figure for the artist, Chanmealea Huy works as a caricature artist and a figure arts model. She obsesses over the expression of the human form within other disciplines: character design, fashion design, paintings of the nude, and illustration. Digging beneath our surface, she is currently pursuing education as an anatomist and physical anthropologist.
Digital Media, Fiber/Textile, Illustration, Mural, Painting & Drawing
Chanmealea Huy
chanmealeahuyart@gmail.com
Beng (Chan) Mealea
(2025)
Like a "mealea" which translates to flower garland, the painting connects the epistemiological and epigenetic connection of the artist, her matenal family and Khmer cultural arts. The artist is named after her mother who is named after her grandmother Malys, or "jasmine." An ode to the baby girls named after flowers, the painting highlights the flowers' role in interconnecting generations across time, space and bodies. The artist is also named after a Hindu-Buddhist temple that is part of the Angkor Wat complex called Beng Mealea which in there stands a broken bas relief sculpture of a devata that survives the collapse of the temple.
Link to Beng (Chan) Mealea