Mural by Fonki

This work brings together a street-art vocabulary and a urban approach. Its value does not come from applying decoration to architecture: the mural gains meaning through its scale, its surface and the way it is encountered in a real place.

FONKi was born in France to Cambodian parents who fled the Cambodian genocide, and grew up in Montreal from the age of four. This triple identity — French, Canadian, and Khmer — fuels his entire practice. Since his beginnings in 2005 in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, he has turned mural art into an act of cultural reconciliation and collective memory, carrying onto walls around the world the faces and ornamental traditions of a civilization that history nearly erased. > “FONKi uses his art as an ambassador for Khmer culture, as a tool to build bridges across the world and create connections with the different communities where he paints.” FONKi began his visual arts training at Cégep du Vieux Montréal before pursuing studies in film and animation at Concordia University. It was in the streets of NDG that he first developed his figurative graffiti practice before transitioning toward muralism. His first major artistic turning point came in 2012 during a trip to Cambodia, which inspired the documentary *Retour aux sources* (“Back to the Roots”), co-produced by renowned Khmer filmmaker Rithy Panh. The film was presented at the Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal (RIDM) and received two awards, including the Prix des Détenues and the Prix Magnus Isacsson. It was during this journey that he created the first graffiti lettering in the *kbach* Khmer style — an ancestral ornamental language found in the temples of Angkor Wat — merging contemporary graffiti with millennia-old art traditions in an entirely original approach. Since then, Angkor-inspired ornamentation has appeared throughout his murals, from Montreal to Puerto Escondido, Paris, Brussels, and Ho Chi Minh City. Among his most notable projects are a mural commissioned by dog owners on Décarie Boulevard, a collaboration with MC Baldassari during the MURAL Festival 2025, and a series of works created with World Vision. In 2023, he received the most prestigious commission of his career: painting an official portrait of His Majesty Norodom Sihamoni. Now based in Phnom Penh, he is curator and owner of FT Gallery within Factory Phnom Penh, a space dedicated to Cambodian and international talent. The gallery forms part of his broader mission: supporting the growth of a contemporary artistic culture in a country still rebuilding after genocide.

Fonki, whose practice is connected with Montreal, develops a visual world that can be followed from one wall to another. Captions and archives connected to this body of work document several mural interventions. These points of reference place the image within a practice rather than treating it as an isolated visual.