Canvas:
Carefully hand-selected traditional fabric from Myanmar, chosen for its texture, symbolism, and origin. Traditional Burmese fabric (longyi), historically worn by women, featuring patterns that date back to Myanmar’s last royal dynasty — the Konbaungera. The fabric draws from the spirit of the “Sarong Revolution,” where women resisted dictatorship by reclaiming their own garments as political symbols. In Myanmar, the spiritual concept of Hpon has long been used to assert male superiority, framing women as inherently lesser. This work challenges those ideas by reclaiming the very textile often used to enforce them.

Technique:
The fabric is primed with a base medium to allow rich color absorption and archival quality. Acrylic is applied in layered strokes to build depth and texture, with acrylic tube used to create sharp, raised lines on her clothing — especially the pants — evoking traditional Myanmar patterns in a tactile, three-dimensional effect.

Process:
The figure’s blending with the fabric reflects how identity can be shaped or obscured by cultural expectations. Her emerging presence becomes a quiet resistance — a moment of self-realization and reclaiming visibility.

Artwork Description:
Chroma Sonata explores the complex entanglement of female identity and societal perception in Myanmar. The figure’s translucent body blends into the traditional fabric, symbolizing how women are often absorbed into cultural expectations, their individuality blurred. Yet her posture is upright, strong, and unapologetically proud — a stance that questions whether she has found clarity in her role, or if she is beginning to emerge from the very forces that once obscured her. The work lingers in this tension, inviting viewers to consider whether visibility is a form of resistance, or a reclaiming of self from a monstrous, inherited truth.

Exhibition History:

• “Thread Under Threat” BACC Art Center, Bangkok, Thailand, 2024