Inle Lake

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

Eain Aye Kyaw's Inle Lake is a tight composition dominated by the facade of an unassuming modern-day structure. Mirrored on the lake surface, the building's reflection is a lively play of rippling colours and fragmented forms. The 'real' and the illusion are pictured in dramatic contrast.

Eain Aye Kyaw (1981-2014) trained in Yangon's State School of Fine Arts and worked as a commercial painter for the tourist trade before becoming a full-time artist in 2010.

The SMU Art Collection has over 70 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.