Tidawhitney Lek

About

Tidawhitney Lek (born 1992) is a Cambodian-American painter based in Long Beach, California, working primarily with figurative compositions that explore themes of family, domesticity, and first-generation immigrant experiences. Her parents fled the Khmer Rouge regime, and she was born into the Cambodian diaspora community in Long Beach as the sixth of seven children. She received her BFA in Painting and Drawing from California State University, Long Beach in 2017, and also studied at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts in China. Lek's artistic practice centers on narrative painting using traditional mediums including pastel, acrylic, and oil paints on canvas, often incorporating synthetic materials like glitter. Her densely layered, brightly colored compositions blur distinctions between interior and exterior spaces, past and present, creating dream-like scenarios that address generational trauma, domestic life, feminist narratives, and Cambodia's violent history. She gained significant recognition following her inclusion in the 2023 Made in L.A. biennial at the Hammer Museum, and her work is now held in major public collections including LACMA, ICA Miami, and the Columbus Museum of Art.

Contemporary figurative surrealism with narrative elements; densely layered compositions blending interior and exterior spaces, influenced by 20th-century surrealist artists and magical realism