Untitled (Yellow)

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:

Zwe Mon is one of the few women artists in the Thukhuma Collection at Singapore Management University. Although women practitioners are gaining prominence in Myanmar's contemporary art scene, art making remains a male-dominated field.

A single female figure dominates the painting. Her figure and her strong facial features are outlined in thick bold lines. She wears an eingyi blouse—a traditional attire. And her cheeks are painted with the natural cosmetic paste thanaka, an undeniably Burmese product. Her elongated hands and neck make for elegant form, while her eye gazes steadily back at the viewer.

This painting belongs to the artist's signature series of portraitures in which the female figure represents both herself and Burmese women. Throughout the series, the artist reclaimed traditional symbols to send a message of empowerment. Here she has painted the woman a halo to challenge prevailing beliefs that women cannot achieve enlightenment. Similarly, she painted a mole under the eye, commonly believed to bring bad luck, to represent a woman in control of her fate.

Zwe Mon on more about the painting:

"I created this girl to represent me and Myanmar women. I have big eyes, which in literature reveal honesty. So I painted them. Aung San Suu Kyi is a female icon, so I included her hairstyle. According to local people, a mole under the eye will bring bad luck. A woman will encounter divorce or the death of her husband. But I have that mole and I love it. I don't believe it will change my fate. So when I face hardship, I remind myself I must not fail, because people will point to my mole. So I give girls a mole and turn them into strong and brave women."

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Zwe Mon (b. 1990, Yangon) has been practicing art both full- and part-time since graduating from Yangon's State School of Fine Arts in 2009. She is the only female artist in the Thukhuma Collection at Singapore Management University. Her paintings are characterised by an experimentation with textures. She contrasts or harmonises the treatment of the paint with the subject of her paintings which often touches on social and political issues, including the theme of education, protest, or the lives of the hard-working poor.

Although women practitioners are gaining prominence in Myanmar's contemporary art scene, art making remains a male-dominated field. Her two Untitled paintings in the display collection belong to a signature series of portraitures in which the female figure representing both herself and Burmese women is consistently repeated in pose, gesture and traditional attire. To the series motif, Zwe Mon introduces symbolic elements to project psychological states and social commentaries.

In this painting, the artist reclaimed traditional symbols, sending an empowering message of women in Myanmar. Zwe Mon has painted the woman a halo, challenging prevailing beliefs that women cannot achieve enlightenment. Similarly, she painted a mole under the eye, commonly believed to bring bad luck, to represent a woman in control of her fate.

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.