COLLIDE
Bold Colours. Zero Boundaries.
Opening | Nov 19, 2025 | 6PM | STAIRWELL GALLERY
COLLIDE brings together three artists: Ket Monnyreak, Alex Maul, and Bruce McLean — whose practices stretch, bend, and joyfully blur the lines between art, design, typography, and lived experience.
All three artists share a fearless spirit. Their works are bold and playful. They each carve out their own creative language and when placed together, those languages collide in an uplifting way. Typography and colour plays a central role in this exhibition.
A century ago, Picasso began weaving type and printed fragments into his Cubist works, opening the door to a new relationship between text and image. Today, artists around the world continue that exploration — and here in Cambodia, the conversation evolves in its own distinct way.
While Khmer visual culture has long included script — from temple inscriptions to hand-painted signage — the use of text as a contemporary artistic device is still relatively sparse. This makes Ket Monnyreak’s practice particularly exciting. His bold Khmer fonts, graphic forms, and playful visual language feel both fresh and rooted, carrying the rhythm of Phnom Penh in a way that’s immediate, joyful, and uniquely his. Placed alongside Alex Maul’s atmospheric mixed-media pieces and Bruce McLean’s witty, boundary-pushing prints, these works create a conversation that moves easily between cultures, generations, and disciplines.
Whilst curating this exhibition what struck me most was the energy that happens when these works share a space.
They speak across borders.
They make us smile.
They bring us together.
COLLIDE celebrates that moment — when art crosses into design, when text becomes texture, when colour becomes presence, and when creativity refuses to sit quietly in just one box.
