Rice Straw Stacks

Nataly Lee

Earth pigment and oil on canvas

200cm x 150cm

2025

I first met Nataly in a way that feels fitting for the kind of connection her work holds—she walked into my first solo exhibition at Solo Gallery in Hobart, and we immediately struck a chord. Later, we deepened that connection through a course at the National Art School with Tonee Messiah, and I’ve felt lucky to witness her practice up close ever since.

Her work is extraordinary in both its material sensitivity and emotional depth. Drawing from the Cambodian landscape, she creates her own pigments from natural elements—gamboge, water hyacinth roots, fibres—imbuing each piece with a profound sense of place and history. There’s a care and intention in her process that feels almost ritualistic, as though each work is an act of remembrance and restoration.

What moves me most is how she weaves the personal with the ecological. Her work speaks to memory, displacement, and return—holding space for both individual and collective histories. Whether through the quiet drift of leaves or the careful binding of thread, there’s a tenderness in the way she approaches complex ideas of belonging and identity. Her practice feels deeply grounded, yet expansive—connecting land, body, and memory in a way that stays with you.

About the Work

Rice Straw Stacks reflects on personal and collective histories and the stories that remain hidden beneath the surface. Built through layers of adding and removing paint, the work suggests fragments of memory that are not immediately visible but still present. The title comes from a story my mother shared about life during the Khmer Rouge era, when lovers would secretly meet among rice straw stacks to share brief moments together. That story stayed with me as a reminder that even in times of violence and uncertainty, small acts of love, care, and humanity can still endure.

Artist Statement

I am a Cambodian–Australian multidisciplinary artist working across painting, photography, and installation. Born in Battambang during the Cambodian civil war, my family fled the country when I was eleven months old and spent four years in refugee camps along the Thai–Cambodian border before resettling overseas. This early experience of displacement continues to inform my practice.

Through field based research and image making, I explore themes of memory, migration, landscape, spirituality, and diasporic identity, considering how histories of movement and survival are carried through place, materials, and everyday life. I am interested in how personal and collective histories continue to shape our understanding of belonging and the ways memory persists within lived experience.

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To purchase this work please contact Harriet Links through her website.