Ordinary People (Five men)

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:

In Ordinary People by Min Zaw, five men stand closely together, against a mottled yellow background. They are so similar in features and attire that little distinguishes one from another. They have the same hairstyle, almost identical facial features, are dressed in variations of striped t-shirts, and their gaze seems to fall beyond the canvas in the same direction. They are meant to be ordinary people, and each is an everyday man, but they have lost their individuality and identity.

On the painting, Min Zaw says: "With male figures, I often paint the emotions we find in our times. I paint people with no purpose who've lost their identity…"

This loss of individuality and identity, and with it hopes and dreams, speaks to the artist's own experience of living under a repressive regime.

The artist takes inspiration from traditional Myanmar temple art, with its soft, tender and paper-thin outlines, the simple and basic colours, and the flat non-3D paint. The unpretentious simplicity makes the image immediately beguiling, which only accentuates the unsettling subject.

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Min Zaw's Ordinary People has an unpretentious simplicity that makes the image immediately beguiling. On closer look, it begins to intrigue. So similar are the figures in features and attire that little distinguish one from another; they are ordinary people, and each is an everyday man—but they have lost their individuality and identity. With folded arms the men return the viewer's gaze, as it they too are assessing as they are being assessed.

Min Zaw (b. 1972, Yangon) graduated from Yangon's State School of Fine Arts in 1994, and the University of Culture in Yangon in 1998. He was a finalist in the 2002 ASEAN Art Award when it was first extended to include entries from Myanmar, and a founding member of the Collective Studio Square which was established in Yangon in 2003. He has exhibited regularly in Singapore since 2000.

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.