Sule Pagoda

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

This painting offer perspective on downtown Yangon. The imagery of Sule Pagoda's spire and the minaret of the colonial-era Bengali Sunni Jameh Mosque arching towards each other from opposite sides of the circular intersection in Yangon's civic and administrative centre is a powerful use of physical and historical conjunctions.

The inscription in the painting repeats in Urdu news reports of mob violence against Muslim communities in Burmese cities. Urdu is a language of instruction in Islamic schools in Myanmar.

Zwe Yang Naing (b. 1984, Rakhine State) lived as a monk for nine years in the coastal town of Ngapali, Rakhine State, before moving to Yangon to attend the State School of Fine Arts in 2006.

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.