Canvas: Carefully hand-selected traditional fabric from Myanmar, chosen for its texture, symbolism, and origin. The textile features the distinctive handwoven Acheik pattern — an intricate wave motif historically associated with royal courts and ceremonial garments during Myanmar’s Konbaung Dynasty. These patterns, created through complex weaving techniques, represent cultural continuity and craftsmanship that have endured across generations.

Technique: The fabric is primed with a base medium to allow rich color absorption and archival stability. Acrylic painting is layered with historical paper collage, including archival imagery and fragments such as a traditional Myanmar astrological chart, creating a textured surface that blends visual narrative with symbolic references.

Process: The work layers historical materials from different periods — from the last Burmese kingdom through the mid-20th century — to explore how cultural memory and belief systems continue to shape women’s lives. By embedding these historical fragments within the figure, the painting reflects how identity is often constructed through inherited structures of tradition, faith, and power.

Artwork Description:
Still Bound, Still Breathing presents two female figures whose bodies appear partially transparent, allowing the intricate Acheik fabric beneath them to remain visible. One figure is covered in layers of collage drawn from historical documents and imagery, while the other gently holds her arm — a gesture that can be read as both support and restraint. The overlapping figures embody the tension between protection and control, intimacy and confinement. Through this layered composition, the work reflects how women continue to carry the weight of history while still asserting presence, endurance, and breath within systems that attempt to bind them.