Dance

Credit Line: Gift of Ian Holliday 2023, Collection of SMU

This artwork is part of 25x25 Campus Art Tour.

Listen to the audio description of the artwork here.

Transcript:

Dance is a medium-sized abstract painting by Burmese artist Soe Naing. Born in Yangon in 1961, Soe Naing is one of Myanmar's leading abstract expressionists. On first impression, the painting is a non-representational abstract art. Broad washes of translucent pink cover most of the surface. In the centre is a cluster of squiggly strokes in pink and blue over a soft yellow form. Slowly, the yellow form begins to suggest a human figure with a head and legs, and the blue and pink squiggles the rhythmic flow of music and movement.

Dance captures what Soe Naing found compelling about abstract expressionism, the stylistic vein he has worked in since the late 1990s, which is to think freely, to start and end anywhere he wanted. And to break out of a repressive art education where he learned to draw representational forms as outlined in a regimented syllabus.

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In an arena dominated by figurative paintings, Soe Naing (b. 1961, Yangon) is the rare artist working in abstract expressionism. The artist has worked in this stylistic vein since the late 1990s. One of the country's most well-travelled artists, Soe Naing was part of a Southeast Asian contemporary art exhibition organised by Singapore Art Museum that travelled to Europe and Japan between the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 2014, he was a special feature artist in Art Stage Singapore's Southeast Asian Platform.

Soe Naing's Dance (2011) captures the freedom of abstract expressionism. He gravitated towards this art style, breaking free from a repressive art education where he learned to draw representational forms as outlined in a regimented syllabus. In this painting, he starts by drawing lines of a figure dancing, and then adding colours with broad brushstrokes.

The SMU Art Collection has over 300 paintings from Myanmar donated by Ian Holliday. A specialist in Burmese politics, Holliday assembled the Thukhuma Collection which comprises of Burmese paintings largely dating from the transitional decade of the 2010s, presenting multiple artistic perspectives on a society in reform. On display at School of Social Sciences and Li Ka Shing Library, the gifted paintings depict the people, culture and land, from the streets of Yangon and rural peripheries to political icons and indigenous deities.