Four years ago, when Time Magazine called Jerry Swaffield "one of Asia's most gifted and unusual artists," the popular periodical was only talking trash.
The article, headlined "Beautiful Garbage," followed Swaffield as he scavenged through a Bangkok dump site in search of material for the assemblage art he was making at the time.
Time described Swaffield as "stylishly ruffled" and his pieces, which he calls "scrapture," as "exuberant" and "achingly exquisite."
But the man behind Pacharan's interior flourishes is far more than just a garbage collector with a bent for the bizarre.
The son of a Royal Irish Fusilier, Swaffield, now 42, was born on a British army base in Germany and grew up in Northern Ireland. He's been in Asia for nearly 17 years and has lived, among other places, in Hong Kong, Siem Reap and the Philippines.
Swaffield started work as an illustrator at the age of 15, and once worked as a cartoonist for the legendary British comic "The Beano."
He's been a sculptor, an oil painter and high-level commercial artist. He's dabbled in robotics, decorated five-star hotels and designed everything from Hong Kong discos to Beijing bars.
So when it came time to pick an artist to design Pacharan, the choice was clear.
"Anthony and I have been good friends for a long time," says Swaffield, speaking about FCC general manager Anthony Alderson. "He wanted somebody to put a little Spanish quarter in the heart of Phnom Penh."
To prepare for the challenge, Swaffield and a dedicated management team spent several days in Barcelona tirelessly researching many of the world's finest tapas bars.
"They got me blind wasted," Swaffield remembers. "It was all a blur, a kaleidoscope."