Canvas:
This work is created on traditional Burmese fabric, whose woven patterns form both the physical and conceptual ground of the painting. The textile carries embedded histories of gender, labor, and cultural belief, functioning not simply as a surface but as an active narrative element.

Technique:
Acrylic painting is combined with archival newspaper clippings and photographic imagery, collaged directly onto the fabric. The visibility of the textile remains intact beneath the layered surface, allowing pattern, image, and figure to coexist rather than override one another.

Process:
Through layering paint and paper, the work brings together fragments of memory and documentation. Historical photographs and newspapers are embedded within the figure, binding personal presence to collective history and allowing past and present to unfold simultaneously.

Artwork Description:
It Cannot Go Untold reflects on the unbroken transmission of history, particularly as it is carried through women’s bodies and lived experience. The female figure appears both contemplative and burdened, her posture suggesting endurance rather than resignation. Portions of her body are composed of newspaper clippings and archival photographs, linking personal identity to moments of political and social upheaval in Myanmar.

The figure sits low and inward, her body folded into itself as if holding something fragile yet unavoidable. One arm wraps around her leg, the other rests close to her chest, creating a posture that feels protective rather than defensive. Her expression is calm, but weighted—eyes lowered, not withdrawn, carrying a quiet insistence rather than despair. What she holds is not spoken, yet it is present.

The background is composed of traditional Burmese woven fabric, its horizontal patterns creating a steady, rhythmic field behind the figure. This repetition suggests continuity—time moving forward while memory remains. The fabric does not simply support the figure; it surrounds and frames her, reinforcing how personal experience is inseparable from cultural and historical inheritance.

Parts of the woman’s body are formed from newspaper clippings and archival photographs, embedding collective memory directly into her physical presence. These fragments of the past are not placed around her, but within her—suggesting that history is absorbed, carried, and lived through the body. The collaged imagery does not overwhelm her form; instead, it becomes inseparable from it.

It Cannot Go Untold speaks to the way stories persist even when unspoken. The painting does not depict a moment of action or resistance, but one of containment—where truth is held quietly, patiently, until it must surface. The figure’s stillness becomes its own declaration: some histories endure not through noise, but through the bodies that carry them forward.