Chuu Wai Nyein arrived on the Myanma art scene last year with the exhibition Synonym of Self, a series of paintings that were seen as daring in her native Myanmar for their portrayal of female sexuality. She followed this up with the exhibitions Vérités Alternatives and One Ten Hundred in the capital and this year made her international debut in Paris with the show Our Turn Now.
Much of Chuu Wai Nyein’s artwork is concerned with portraying the feminine as a plural phenomenon. Her paintings show vibrant images of sensuality and independence that are often juxtaposed with muted depictions and metaphors of restriction. A key series in Synonym of Self showed the faces of Burmese women, their hair tied up tight in formal buns, masked by sheets of beautifully embroidered traditional fabric. The message is clear and the effect, erasing the women’s features with patterns of gold and silver curls, is ghostly and uncanny. Yet there are other images that reflect an alternative vision of womanhood, full-body outlines of women striking sensuous and erotic poses gazing at the viewer in teasing expressions. It was one thing to portray women as victims of culture, but to show them as unashamed sexual beings drew controversy in a country where attitudes to gender remain strongly conservative.
Her next exhibition, Vérités Alternatives, used French and Burmese newspaper as a background for a continued exploration of female identity in different cultures. This was followed by One Ten Hundred, a series of paintings which questioned received wisdom about history and tradition. Maids of the 19th century Yadanarpon Court have always been portrayed as the embodiment of traditional Burmese femininity but through historical research Chuu Wai Nyein was able to discover that the lives of these women were more intricate and full than the schoolbook representations that seemed to confirm patriarchal ideals. Her paintings thus offer an alternative glimpse back in time, and depict these feminine icons with a vibrancy and spirit closer to the truth. / Go To Reference Link /
