Richard Koh Fine Art (RKFA-SG) is pleased to announce a curated exhibition by Louis Ho, with works by 9 Burmese artists; Aye Ko, Aung Ko, Htein Lin, Richie Htet, Maung Day, Nge Lay, Soe Yu Nwe, Tun Win Aung & Wah Nu. Essentialist Images is scheduled to run from 17 July – 8 August 2020 at Richard Koh Fine Art, Blk 47 Malan Road, #01-26 Gillman Barracks, Singapore 109444.
Essentialist Images is an exhibition of contemporary Burmese art, and its oscillation between the static past and the persistently intrusive present. The writer and collector Andrew Ranard wrote of the modern era as it unfolded in Myanmar: “It was as if everything that Burma had achieved in the arts in the 20th century was worth nothing. Such attitudes … are soothing to some Burmese, especially those who yearn to remain prisoners of that fantastic lost space which lies in ruins about them.”
While the ubiquitous panoply of traditionally-derived images that dominate popular forms of Burmese art – from monks to landscapes – are absent here, the work in this exhibition foreground other familiar tropes that have come to define the country in the twentieth century and beyond: political authoritarianism, the anticolonial legacy, and, especially, the lingering spectre of its long, rich cultural history. The essentialist character of these works is not one of fixed geo-cultural essence, but a complication of received ideas and images, from iconography to anatomy to photographs to film, that serve as a response to contemporary issues that have increasingly stereotyped depictions of Myanmar today.
Aung Ko, Aye Ko, Htein Lin, Maung Day, Nge Lay, Richie Htet, Soe Yu Nwe, Tun Win Aung & Wah Nu – Essentialist Images (Curated by Louis Ho)
17 July - 8 August 2020
Richard Koh Fine Art,
Blk 47, Malan Road,
#01-26 Gillman Barracks,
Singapore 109444
Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 7pm
Closed on Sundays, Mondays & Public Holidays
Visitors are advised to follow the COVID-19 precautionary measures at all time.
Endless Story Jogja 4
Nge Lay
2019
Colour print on archival matt paper
137.2 x 91.4 cm (Edition 1 of 9)
Endless Story Jogja 6
Nge Lay
2019
Colour print on archival matt paper
137.2 x 91.4 cm (Edition 1 of 9)
Endless Story Jogja 8
Nge Lay
2019
Colour print on archival matt paper
137.2 x 91.4 cm (Edition 1 of 9)
