From hotel designer to artist: Bill Bensley has sold hundreds of his paintings for meaningful causes
Known for his avant-garde hotel designs, landscape architect and interior designer Bill Bensley works hard at his art to raise funds and awareness for his charity and environmental conservation projects in Cambodia.

Hotel designer, landscape architect, interior designer and artist Bill Bensley. (Photo: Bensley Outsider Gallery)
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Bangkok-based Englishman Bill Bensley had taken art classes while studying landscape architecture at Harvard University in the early 80s, but it stayed a casual interest while he went on to design many well-known hotels over the next 35 years. These include JW Marriott Jeju Resort & Spa, Shinta Mani Wild – A Bensley Collection, Capella Ubud and Rosewood Luang Prabang.
“I did nothing really with art until 2019 when my English friend and professional artist Kate Spencer placed a great big brush in my hand and asked me to join her. She was staying in my home in Bangkok for two weeks and we painted every day,” said Bensley. “I loved the way the art flowed out of her brush so easily and was determined to be able to perform in a similar fashion.”
While architecture and design comes naturally to the founder of design studio BENSLEY, fine art remains what he described as “a pleasant wrestling match – me versus the brush”. This sparring intensified when the COVID-19 pandemic put a pause on work. “It was a wonderful break in life. Prior, I was flying at a pace of some 250 sectors per year. To be able to spend much of three years painting was welcomed,” said Bensley.

In his art studio, which I glimpsed through the screen of our late-2024 online interview, daylight from glass ceilings saturates his paintings’ colours. In between talking, Bensley put touches to a blue-washed canvas inspired by a trip to Greenland. It depicted two men; one was Bensley and the other, the famous Greenland explorer Knud Rasmussen.
“In the painting, Rusmussen is my friend. And I’m so cold that I’m turning blue,” Bensley mused on painting his face azure. Like his art, inspiration for his lavish hotels is drawn from context. Capella Hanoi’s interior design plays homage to the nearby opera house by theming stage personalities from Hanoi’s history. InterContinental Khao Yai’s fictitious protagonist is a passionate train conductor, hence the repurposed train carriages for guestrooms.


Bensley’s works are reminiscent of early 20th century Fauvist art movement, which is synonymous with French masters like Henri Matisse and Andre Derain. While he is drawn to the movement, Bensley maintained that he does not subscribe to a particular style. Each month, he picks a muse to stretch his artistic abilities.
“While I always start my work from live models or from painting the places I visit in nature, I like to challenge myself by entering into the mindset of my monthly muse, to imagine how he or she would have tackled the subject currently in front of me. This month, my muse is Van Gogh, and I am painting a series I started during summer while travelling some 300km by row boat through Mongolia,” said Bensley.
The “plethora of wildflowers” that blossom gloriously in Mongolia had reminded him of Van Gogh’s blooms. “I am painting those landscapes with heaps of thick paint. The technique, called Impasto, was something Van Gogh was wonderful at, despite never having sold even one painting in his lifetime,” he commented.

Bensley has sold many pieces since he started painting seriously, but for more altruistic reasons than creative fulfilment. A hundred per cent of sales go to supporting the philanthropic work of Wildlife Alliance and the Shinta Mani Foundation.
Bensley started the Foundation with his friend Sokoun Chanpreda in 2004. Its origin dates back to 2010 when both of them purchased 350 ha of the Cardamom National Park of Cambodia to prevent it from becoming a tin mine. Exploring the rainforest, their eyes were opened to the rich flora and fauna – as well as accompanying threats.
“Our property is one of the few areas where wild elephants still roam. We have 120 species of birds, all sorts of reptiles, and the butterflies are amazing. Oh, and the Samba deer, they’re so, so beautiful,” Bensley said before describing how these creatures are poached “with snares like long ropes that wrap around everything.”


To tackle poaching and illegal logging (there are many precious species here too, such as rosewood), the pair decided to open a low-impact luxury resort whose earnings would go toward the preservation and conservation of the rainforest. It would also pay for rangers to patrol the grounds and remove snares. This resort opened in 2018 as the 15-suite Shinta Mani Wild along the Tmor Rung River. Part of Bensley’s collection of Shinta Mani Hotels, guests can partake in forest activities as well as join a patrol for frontline experience.
Beyond helping Cambodian nature and wildlife, Bensley has also been working on assisting its impoverished villagers. When the Shinta Mani Foundation was established, so was the Shinta Mani School of Hospitality in Shinta Mani Angkor Hotel. It gives free training of hotel operations to selected, underprivileged Cambodian youths to help them break out of the poverty cycle.
“We take in 35 young adults annually. We interview about 50 in order to pick one. There’s that much need for it but we don't have enough funds to send more than 35 a year. The funding comes from the art,” said Bensley. Prices for his artworks range from US$6,000 (S$8,192) to US$8,500. Each is assigned to and raises funds from a specific project covering the Foundation’s four pillars: Education, healthcare, conservation and environment, and direct assistance.

The mixed non-profit and for-profit business model also covers community projects to sponsor food, school supplies, bicycles, dental care, as well as build water wells and rebuild houses for rural families in the Siem Reap Province. The aim is to replace 300 houses that are basically patchworks of plastic sheets and found materials. To date, 205 houses have been completed. The aim is for the remaining 95 to be completed by the end of this year.
The project also aims to provide enclosed, lockable toilets for the families for the first time in their lives, with water closets sponsored by American sanitary brand Kohler. Previously, it was especially unsafe for women or children to shower or go to the toilet in the open; open defecation also meant the easy spread of diseases.
Bensley’s dedication to these causes through his art adds to his busy hotel design work. He carries a sketchbook or watercolour paper mounted on boards wherever he goes to take sketch notes. Many end up multiple times larger – some even in his hotels. The largest, measuring 4m by 8.5m and featuring seven volcanoes, hangs in the foyer of the grand ballroom at JW Marriott Jeju Resort & Spa.
Bensley’s clients are his best supporters. He shared: “I am fortunate that everything I paint sells out quickly – not that I consider myself a good artist, but rather, my clients are keen to help with the work my Foundation is doing in Cambodia.”
In the past 10 years, the Foundation and Bensley’s art has enabled 324 students to graduate from the Shinta Mani School of Hospitality, built 1,839 water wells (as well as over 3,000 water filters), given 16,136 children free dental healthcare and provided 3,600 bicycles to enable students to get to school, and awarded 80 interest-free micro loans to individual wanting to start new businesses, among other achievements.
Aside for a gallery in his Bangkok studio, Bensley’s artworks can be viewed in galleries of hotels he has designed for, such as The Siam Hotel in Bangkok, Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui and Shinta Mani Angkor Hotel. “I also have a wonderful gallery at the InterContinental Danang Resort, where the hotel guests, who are mostly Vietnamese, purchase a lot of my art. As we have done many lovely hotels in Vietnam, I have a strong following there,” said Bensley.
He has also held exhibitions to raise awareness for his causes. The first was in 2022 at Bangkok’s River City gallery. “I sold way more than I ever thought I might and sent my first big cheque to Cambodia to support our Foundation’s hospitality school,” shared Bensley proudly.
In May 2024, he collaborated with several other artists to stage Call of the Cardamoms in W Bangkok. The three-day charity activation and month-long art exhibition also debuted his collaboration with American luxury furniture manufacturer Baker-McGuire on a new furniture line based on animals of the Cardamom rainforests, and BENSLEY’s collaboration with Thai silk specialist Jim Thompson on a new fabric range for interiors. Ten per cent of sales from these two projects will go to the Foundation.
From now till Apr 20, Bensley returns to MOCA Bangkok for a second exhibition. “The subject matter will be based on my latest travels to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan; plus Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Montenegro, Mongolia, Italy, Korea, Laos, Cambodia, Greenland and Japan – but from a comical perspective,” he mentioned.
This will be a rotating exhibition with three separate collections. The first part, running from now till Jan 30, will feature a selection of Bensley's works. The second, titled Smoking Hot will run from Feb 14 to Mar 27, presents paintings of volcanic eruptions in Socotra (Yemen), Alor (Indonesia), Jeju Island (South Korea) and Japan. From Mar 28 to Apr 30, the third instalment, titled The Call of the Cardamoms will showcase a consortium of 13 global artists highlighting the plight of endangered wildlife in the Cardamom Rainforest. Spencer's works will also feature in the finale.
Prices range from US$6,000 to US$10,000, and proceeds will go to the beneficiaries mentioned in the article as well as helping deaf children in Luang Prabang, where Bensley has also designed a hotel (Rosewood Luang Prabang). Â
Given the opportunity with the right partners, Bensley hopes to exhibit in Singapore, or anywhere else in the world for that matter. There is no end to the help needed for his causes. “Next year, we aim to fund another 100 homes, 35 full scholarships for the Shinta Mani Hospitality School, 14 full-time rangers to patrol the Cardamom rainforests, baby formula for 150 infants, 50 water wells, repair the roads and initiate an English school in Tmor Rung Village,” Bensley shared enthusiastically.
Without a doubt, helping to improve lives – of people, wildlife and the earth – brings Bensley great joy. When asked if his charitable work has influenced his approach to his practice and life in general, he responded: “It certainly is very grounding. As a somewhat successful architect, it is all too easy to get caught up in the whole game of it all and work your life away. I find now that my life has a real purpose.”Â