Feature: Wah Nu’s and Tun Win Aung’s art
By Chu Chu Yuan

I quite often hear in Myanmar, artists saying to me, ‘I make art for my wife’ or “I make art for myself’.

So when Tun Win Aung said the former to me, I thought that while this is not an uncommon expression from an artist anywhere in the world - performing as a badge of honour, a sign of artistic independence, freedom, integrity, and so on - I also wondered what else it can mean in a country where if one is not interested to produce the kind of art that is saleable in the galleries in Myanmar, then there is little other possibilities except to make art for oneself, or for one’s partner; rare as it is to find alternative support structures for art or to be able to express the sense of connections between art and society.

Tun Win Aung’s early paintings are delightfully sensitive, intimate and sensuous portraits, of friends and mainly of Wah Nu – his partner, soul mate, wife - and reveals variegated states of mind through skillful manipulations of colour. He comes across as being shy, boyish and speaks in a slow and considerate manner.

Colour plays an important part in most Myanmar artists’ works – seen as a prime device for developing composition, and for carrying expression and message. The uninitiated to Myanmar art would find the colour palettes of Myanmar art highly unusual and even shocking to the senses.

To my amazement, Tun Win Aung says nobody has been interested to buy his portraits. The works display the haunting qualities as paintings by old French masters – that which has sold many paintings for Vietnamese artists. “I priced them at USD100, in my third solo show in 2003?, but I only sold one. No galleries were interested in my work”.

Wah Nu and Tun Win Aung are not members of any gallery. They remind me of other independent minded artist-couples: Than Htay Maung and Khet Mar, and Chan Aye and Phyu Mon. Perhaps the partnership proves supportive and sustainable for them, so that they do not feel the need to belong to a group or gallery.

Best free iphone Tun Win Aung’s later paintings are larger in scale and have turned to more symbolic subjects, combining autobiographical images with images of world famous events – charging personal moments with commentaries of impending hope or doom.

However, he does not consider painting as his main artistic activity. Among other forms of expressions that he finds stimulating for his ideas are installations, multi-media and performance. His performances and installations, made mainly in outdoor site-specific contexts, share the same aesthetically wistful, haunting and transitory qualities of his paintings. In a performance made for video, his white cloth entwined body appears to wandering floatingly through the hilly landscape of Sagaing, a town neighbouring Mandalay, famous for its monasteries dotted hills and other historical incidents. An installation work created in a rice field featured hundreds of red umbrellas used for offering at pagodas; another features brown, decomposing leaves taking the form of a human body, placed on a beach. He seems concerned to connect and situate the human body and human strife within the larger picture of existence.

Another body of work is a mini treatise created in multi-media which creates links between archeology, nature and culture – displaying his interest and curiosity to bring together different bodies of knowledge on nature, primitive culture and modern culture. The work frames human knowledge within specific contexts of historical continuity and different traditions and pockets of knowledge.

“I make this for myself, for my own curiosity. I started doing this for Wah Nu, for example if Wah Nu is curious to know about some bird or leaf, I will make study and observation and record them for her. ”

Wah Nu graduated from the University of Fine Arts in October 1994, with a major in Music, whilst Tun Win Aung graduated at the same time with a major in sculpture.

In Wah Nu’s paintings, clouds, trees and colours are used as symbols and triggers for memory processes. She turned to painting after 4 years of creative search for an outlet that is most suited for her sense of expression. She finally found that in painting and video.

She finds that she learns best by herself, finding what suits her best at her own pace. Learning about ‘isms’ and techniques did not help her. She relies on intuition and day dreaming to come up with ideas for her work. “I am always thinking about some idea or another, although some may not be realizable as a work”.

Meditating on and working with ideas and subjects that give her a sense of peace, calm and happiness satisfies her the most. Her paintings give out a sense of orderliness and calm, as well as a playful naivety. Having finished a series featuring leaves, she is now working on another on sunrise.

Her father being famous Myanmar filmmaker U Wunna, and her parents’ involvement in filmmaking and production has given Wah Nu intimate insights into the film industry, although her father has never allowed her to use his camera and 35mm film. So turning to video is natural as well as reactionary for her, as video has given her the freedom to explore and overcome what she has seen to be the constrains of film.

She made her first video titled ‘Teatime in Spring’ in 2002 with a borrowed DV camera from a friend. “At that time, I have not seen video works by other artists” she said. Later, through her meeting with art critic Keiko Sei, who started a video programme in Yangon, she was exposed to works by other artists specializing in the video medium, and became more encouraged to create video art. In 2005, she was chosen to participate in the Fukuoka Triennial, where she was exposed to many different kinds of art of different media and video art of different styles. In 2005? She was invited to participate in Berlin with her video “Lives are Made up of Light.”

Wah Nu’s videos displays a keen sensitivity to observations of nature and existence. Teatime in Spring focuses on feeding activities of ants, while Lives are Made up of Light focuses on light conditions in one building in Yangon for the duration of 24 hours. Although artistic in nature, her work has strong documentary qualities, and builds on strong singular concepts. The aesthetics is very clean, subtle and precise, and contrasts greatly with the predominantly colourful, explosive and heavily loaded visual language of Myanmar art, and is perhaps telling of the fact that she is not trained in any visual arts tradition.

When I asked Tun Win Aung why he chooses to continue making art, when the going is so difficult for artists in Myanmar, he replied, as most artists in Myanmar do, “it is not a choice”. From young, all he wanted to do was to make art. Whereas for Wah Nu, she has at one point thought of becoming a director like her father, and also of becoming a writer, but life’s experiences brought changes to her mind. She enjoys writing and still does it for her own sense of satisfaction. However she has given up any aspiration of becoming a director due to difficulties that she has seen from her parents’ working with crew and cast, and the heavy financing involved. She feels that video allows her to be more in control of the artistic content and direction of her work.

This artist-couple live a very low key life, are seldom seen at galleries, but maintain close contact with a small circle of friends. They include fellow artists Po Po, Pwo Kyi (Taungyi) and Wai Mar. Tun Win Aung laughingly remarks, “I meet with Po Po once a week, we tell each other jokes and cheer each other up whenever one of us is feeling low.”

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Feature: Wah Nu’s and Tun Win Aung’s art