Filed under: art conversation, exhibit | Tags: သိန်းသိန်း, pansodan, pansodan gallery, thein thein, zach hyman
Sundays at Pansodan we fire up the espresso machine and make coffee from beans grown in Shan State. We just started, but it seems like a good idea, so let’s try it again. This time, we have a Sunday-only exhibit of works by Thein Thein.
Thein Thein paints a kaleidoscopic window into small town life, infusing mundane rural landscapes with prismatic treetops and dazzling skies. Treetops tower over quilt-like hodge-podges of homes, cut through with bustling roads and rivers. Soft pinks, purples, and oranges, bright greens and yellows inject the tranquil scenes of day-to-day life with a buzzing vitality.
Indeed, these roads and rivers are veins – a glimpse into rural Myanmar in motion. Man-made and natural twine; these time-worn paths deftly tie together the artist’s collage of both the visible world of umbrellas, pagodas, and power lines as well as the intangible world of commerce, piety, and dreams.
Known for his watercolors and illustrations, Thein Thein draws inspiration in his birthplace of Pyay, where he makes his life as an artist. He deftly blends reality and fantasy into the colour-soaked canvas iterations of his hometown, effortlessly inhabiting the space between traditional village landscapes and modern abstraction.
By Zach Hyman
Sunday, 20 March 2011 is the last day this exhibition of Eikaza Cho’s work. In addition to his paintings, his notebooks will be on display for the first time. Ko Cho’s playful lines, varied subjects — how many artists paint a colourful fly? — and lively compositions are all evident in his notebooks. Come in from 10 to 6 for a peek at the works we love and a sampling of his new series.
Filed under: art conversation, exhibit | Tags: ကိုချို, Eikaza Cho, ko cho, zach hyman
Boundless Lines: The Notebooks of a Color Composer
Although Eikaza Cho is a very skilled artist with a broad portfolio of important works, some of the most striking examples of his creativity lie within a series of ordinary-looking school notebooks. Upon looking into them, one realizes immediately that these are no ordinary school notebooks, but rather a glimpse into the aesthetic testing ground of a well-established force in Myanmar’s illustrator world. A series of hybridizations of abstraction and cartoon, figures and fantasy, the contents of these notebooks is a glimpse into the creative day-in-day-out exercises and experimentations of a skilled illustrator.
“Before my brush touches the canvas, I don’t give any thought to what I am going to paint.” With this in mind, the whimsical sketches contained within these notebooks are all the more interesting. Upon recognizing the truly spontaneous and unconsidered lineage of these figments of Eikaza Cho’s imagination, one can see them as sort of “aesthetic aerobics” – beautiful byproducts of the daily honing of his creative ability, the stretching of his formidable creative muscle.
This is to say nothing of his canvas works, which will also be included. Traces of influence in the form of Kandinsky and Miro can be seen in his renditions and re-interpretations of traditional Myanmar deities, animals, and legendary figures, although each is instilled with a unique twist of Eikaza Cho’s unique aesthetic sensibility.
Eikaza Cho’s notebooks will be part of an exhibition of his work at Pansodan Gallery, opening on 14 March.
By Zach Hyman
For more art conversations, click on the ‘art conversation’ tag at the top of this post.
At two in the afternoon of Sunday 6 March poets will gather at Panosdan Gallery to read to poetry lovers — that could be you. Most poets will read their own work on one or two languages (all will be presented in Burmese and English).
Among the poems read will be ones by Padetha Raza and Seinda Kyawthu U Aw. These will not be read by the poets, who are long dead, but their poems live on and have been beautifully translated in a collaboration between Sayagyi and the well-known poetry translator, Keith Bosley. A rare chance to get a sense of personal life in the Nyaung Yan and early Konbaung periods (1700s).
If you want to read up on it this afternoon, I suggest you download this Introduction to Myanmar Poetry by Dragan Janeković. It starts off in Serbian, but skip to page 18 for English, and find plenty of poems in English, Burmese and of course Serbian in the second half.
286 Pansodan, first floor (upper block), Kyauktada, Yangon. Mobile: 0951 30846
For a quick view of upcoming events at Pansodan, you can cast a glance on our facebook page.
ကန်တော်မင်းကျောင်းဆရာတော် (၁၄၃၈-၁၅၁၃)
လောကသာရပျို့မှ
ညောင်ပင်ကြီးနှယ်ကျင့်စဖွယ်
ကျောင်းတော်ခရီး၊ လမ်းမကြီး၌၊
ပင်ထီးပညောင်၊ မြစ်တစ်ထောင်နှင့်၊
မြားမြောင်ခက်လက်၊ ရွက်လည်းစိပ်စိပ်၊
စေ့စေ့သိပ်လျက်၊ ရိပ်လည်းမြိုင်မြိုင်၊
လေမနိုင်လျှင်၊ ပွင့်ခိုင်သီးမှည့်၊
အပြည့်ကျေး ငှက်၊ စားလျက်သောင်းသဲ
KANDAW MINKYAUNG SAYADAW (1438-1513)
A Big Banyan Tree
Excerpt from “Lokathara Pyo”
A prominent solitary banyan tree
Grows near the road.
With its thousand roots
And its multitude of branches, Its leaves thickly set
Gives abundant shade
The wind cannot overcome it.
Its branches
Bend with young and ripe fruit
Birds come twittering to eat.
Translation by Dragan Janeković
