A painting by Moe Nyo which is on exhibition in Chiang Mai this month.

THREE Myanmar contemporary artists, Pe Nyunt Way, Wai Chit Ko and Moe Nyo, will hold solo exhibitions at the Writers Club and Wine Bar in Chiang Mai starting from last Friday, November 18.

The Writers Club has a reputation for being the arts hub of Chiang Mai with members of the art world gathering there on Friday nights.

The three solo exhibitions by Myanmar artists at the club are organised in conjunction with Suvannabhumi, the only gallery devoted to Myanmar art in Chiang Mai.

The paintings of each artist will be on display at the club for one month.
“This is the first time we have shown contemporary Myanmar paintings at the club,” Ma Mar Mar, who founded Suvannabhumi Gallery mid last year, told the Myanmar Times.

“Bob Andrews, the owner of the club, is very much interested in Myanmar contemporary artists and their work. Having visited Myanmar many times, he has come to love Myanmar’s art. He told me he wanted to make a small exhibition of Myanmar paintings from my gallery at his club and I agreed to it,” Ma Mar Mar said.

The artists, whose paintings will be on display, are Pe Nyunt Way, Wai Chit Ko and Moe Nyo.

Moe Nyo’s 26 watercolours are the first to be exhibited.

The 29-year-old has made Myanmar’s historical buildings such as pagodas, temples and monasteries and scenes of Sagaing and Bagan in central Myanmar, his subject matter.

“I made all these paintings after setting out on a journey into middle Myanmar. I enjoy portraying the beauty of nature and the buildings in it,” Moe Nyo said.

“It is good to show our works in Chiang Mai. Our work needs to be shown to the international market. Thanks goes to Ma Mar Mar,” added the artist, who is also a lecturer at the Yangon University of Culture.

Ma Mar Mar said she has a lot of faith in the artist and has been showcasing his work in her own gallery since it opened last year.

After Moe Nyo, Wai Chit Ko’s work will be exhibited at the club.

The Ye Oo-born artist, who is also well-known as a songwriter in Myanmar, will showcase 18 watercolour works under the title 'The Moon on Our Town'. Most his paintings depict his native Pyin Oo Lwin at night.

“His popular cubism-style painting One city, three moons will also be included in the show,” said Ma Mar Mar.

She added that she has also been collecting this artist’s work for over 10 years.

Finally, acrylic paintings by prominent modern artist Pe Nyunt Way, will go on display early in the new year.

Pe Nyunt Way, who also does illustration work for a number of magazines, said the paintings which he will exhibit in Chiang Mai are based on sketches he made on a trip to Cambodia in 2003.

“The trip was an arts exchange project between artists, curators, and cultural practitioners in Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. During the month-long exchange program I made a lot of sketches of what I saw around me,” he said.

His exhibition will be named ‘Sketching Fields’.

“I named this title as Cambodia was once known as the Killing Fields where the Khmer Rouge committed genocide during the late 1970s,” he said.

Ma Mar Mar said his exhibition would be particularly interesting to people in Chiang Mai as it is “the outlook of a Myanmar artist on Cambodia.”

In October this year, the Writers Club held a group exhibition by Myanmar artists, in which 34 works by Win Pe Myint, Kyee Myintt Saw, Pe Nyunt Way, Nya Min Kyaw, Zaw Mong, Moe Nyo and Harn Lay were displayed.

“More than half the number of paintings were sold,” said Ma Mar Mar proudly.
She said she opened her gallery to help Myanmar artists gain exposure on the international market, and the showings at the Writers Club will do the same.
“Only a handful of Myanmar artists go abroad to exhibit their works. That’s why I am trying to expose their work to the international community as much as I can,” she said.

“I know well that the quality of Myanmar paintings means that they can stand proudly alongside works from other countries on the international market.”

It is now just a matter of getting the work out there, she added, which is why she chose Chiang Mai as the location of her gallery; “It is a place many foreigners pass through.

“I myself love these paintings and so I have been collecting [Myanmar art] for many years.”

When her collection got to over 400 works, she decided to open a gallery.
But not all the pieces in her collection are for sale, some she said, she just cannot bear to part with.

“I don’t collect paintings with the intention of selling them. I buy my favourite paintings, the ones that I personally like. So, some are for sale and some, which I want to keep in my personal collection, are not.”

The Writer’s Club is on Rachadamnoen Road, T Phra Singh, Chiang Mai, and is open Sunday to Friday from noon to midnight.

Ma Mar Mar’s Suvannabhumi Gallery is located at 9/10Taewarit Road, Changpuak, Chiang Mai. Call 01-031 5309 for opening times.