U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon

My Friend U Tin Win and Hillary!

More friends, Sonny Nyein & Aung Myint with Daw Suu!

Wow!

KMY with novice.   Photo by Sonny Nyein

My sincere thanks to good friend Ma Thanegi for providing the following excerpt from her new book, This is Kin Maung Yin.

“The man…

KMY, as he often signs his paintings, is more artist than man… the passion of his art suffuses his being so thoroughly that it seems he never had much to do with or within the human realm. He dismisses luxury or material possessions as superfluous. He never had any use for them in the first place so that he did not even have to discard them after deliberation and awareness, which usually come with time and maturity.

There is no hypocrisy in him, for he does not care what others think of him, only of what he thinks of himself. If he speaks of people, himself included, he speaks of facts, never presumptions. He cannot do evil nor harbour malice, for these are, in even their lightest sense, alien to his nature and not acceptable to his soul.

******************

Dr. Toe Toe Tin, grand daughter of Daw Khin Thet Tin and niece of KMY, recalled another incident about how much KMY loves music. In the late ‘80s she had bought a video tape of Milos Forman Amadeus, the eight academy award-winning movie on the life of Mozart. KMY heard from the family grapevine that Toe Toe had it and arrived on her doorstep.

“He came about 10 a.m., and my parents were thrilled to see him, thinking he’d come to see them. He immediately said he wanted to watch Amadeus, and he sat down and began watching it over and over I don’t know how many tines, until late in the evening. My parents simply went to bed, as they had no chance at all to have a chat with him.”)

******************

The artist….

About why he wanted to become an artist, KMY would write: “I paint because I am interested in colours; I love to spread colours on the clean surface of the canvas. I like to use colours straight out of the tube. No mixing for me, I only do it when it’s really necessary. I like colours to be kept separate on the canvas, too, not seeped into each other. I like them pure and simple.”

As he wrote in English in one article “Simplicity is perfection and perfection is tender”. He knew the fragility of perfection and has done not the slightest harm to it.

******************

When he began doing abstracts, his pure, gem-like colours astounded all viewers. Artists agree that no one in Myanmar was better at non-objective themes than him. It was not only the colours but his strong sense of composition that made these works full of joy as well as luminosity. He was doing portraits from time to time and he also made sketches of faces, often his own or of artists and writers and international figures he admired. Perhaps these inspired his famous seated ladies series but it could also be the result of his love for Things Myanmar. He never wanted to live away from his country and he found many subjects to paint that symbolised Myanmar culture.

******************

His friend Win Pe explained in an interview: “KMY read a great deal before he started painting; he looked at a lot of paintings. Others usually begin painting with some trepidation, but from the start KMY knew exactly what he must do, exactly what he wanted to do. He is simply painting what he wants and how he wants, as he always did. He is true to his art.”

The purity of his colours defines KMY’s art.

The purity of his mind defines KMY’s life.

He is simply and sincerely loved by all who know him, for his simplicity and sincerity.

This is Kin Maung Yin.”

—Available at Lokanat Gallery or by mail from Select Books, Singapore.

U Win Pe, by Kin Maung Yin, Oil on canvas, 2008 Chris Dodge Gallery Museum

My favorite short story by U Win Pe.

This introduction is very dated as it is from the first edition (1993) of the book INKED OVER, RIPPED OUT : “U Win Pe is generally agreed to be one of Burma’s most popular storytell­ers, whether it be as a film director, a maker of video movies, or a short-story writer. Now in his mid-fifties, he is, by his own admission, something of a jack-of-all-trades; he has at various times been a journalist, cartoonist, gem dealer, musician, arts administrator, film director, painter, and writer. He grew up in an artistic family and learned Burmese classical music before he began primary school. He attended Mandalay University, studying first natu­ral sciences, then philosophy, political science, and philosophy, but he left without a degree because, as he said in an interview, he was “painting, making music, and involved in politics.”

His first job was as a cartoonist on a left-wing daily newspaper. When the paper was nationalized he went to work in the jade mines owned by his father-in-law. At the age of thirty-one he was appointed to the post of principal of the State School of Fine Arts, Music, and Dancing in Mandalay under the Ministry of Culture, which gave him some six years of experience as a government servant under the Burmese Way to Socialism. He left this post to take up filmmaking, an activity that gave more scope to his creative imagina­tion and his many talents.

U Win Pe now divides his time between film direction, painting, and writing short stories, turning to the latter two during breaks in his filming schedules. He first started writing short stories in the late 1980s, when shortages of film stock left him with time on his hands. More recently he has returned to films, but concentrates on video films, for which it is much easier and cheaper to obtain the necessary equipment in Burma. Cinema’s loss has been the gain of the literary world. U Win Pe’s varied career has furnished him with a richness of experience that gives power and authenticity to his short stories: at the same time his artist’s eye enables him to paint a scene vividly in just a few lines.”

The Middle of May

“It is hot in Mandalay in the middle of May.

By two in the afternoon, the heat is at its height and the tarmac on the main road in the Bawdigon Quarter is melting. There is not a soul to be seen. Everyone with an ounce of sense stays indoors trying to keep cool as best they can.

It was at this time of the day and year that a flatbed truck, loaded down with pots of flowering plants, was rumbling east along the A-road. There was no other traffic and it was going at quite a rate when a clay pot balanced near the edge of the back suddenly fell off. It landed on the hard, dirt road and smashed into smithereens. The soil inside scattered everywhere, and the little green plant lay denuded, just as if someone had pulled it up from the earth and shaken it free of all the soil clinging to its roots.

The truck driver braked sharply and the tires gave out a screech, piercing the stifling silence of the neighborhood. People from the surrounding houses came running out to see what was up. The driver’s mate sprang down from the cab and looked back at the broken pot—the debris was already a full fifty or sixty feet behind. Instead of running back to pick up the pot, he glanced up at the driver with annoyance and said, “It’s in bits, boss.”

“What sort is it, one of the big or little ones?”

“Little.”

“Forget it, then. Jump in!”

The heat had made them impatient and with another screech of their tires, they were gone.

Go to the archive to continue The Middle of May

President Thein Sein is leader of the soft-liners.  He is said to be listening to the younger generation of military officers who feel that there should be a reconciliation with the country’s pro-democracy forces to get the sanctions lifted and move the economy and the country forward.  The new president is Senior General Than Shwe’s hand-picked successor so the former leader deserves a share of credit if in fact meaningful change is happening. Could it be that before the elections and the creation of the new government, General Than Shwe and the powers that be decided Burma must have its version of “opening up,” like China and Vietnam before it? Clearly, the first goal is the lifting of Western economic sanctions and second, the strategic realignment away from China to a more multilateral foreign policy.

But, longer term, is this the initiation, and acceptance, of what in the past has been termed, “the third way?” That is, a way forward between the perpetuation of the military’s domination of Burma’s political and economic life (which predates recent governments and has deep roots in Burma’s history) and its most radical alternative: revolution. Perhaps the most prominent and eloquent proponent of “the third way” is Thant Myint-U, grandson of former UN general-secretary U Thant and author of the best selling books, The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma and Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia.

Of course, a decision to change course seems logical and necessary. A Burmese political and economic system run solely by the military hasn’t been effective in meeting the needs of the majority of its citizens.  But is revolutionary change the only solution?

Revolutions are risky.  Historically, minorities suffer in revolutions.  Burma is a country of minorities; there are nearly 150 different ethnic groups representing around 40% of the population. And Burma is chock full historical resentments, not just between the the minorities and the majority Bama but also between and within the minorities groups and between Bamas themselves.  Burma is like a more complicated Yugoslavia. The past military government signed 17 peace agreements with various ethnic armies. The United States only had one civil war; some would say it still sears our country, 150 years later. What is the effect of 17 civil wars?

Another problem is revolutions eat their young.  Everyone is happy for awhile but history tells us things soon get out of control, the original leaders are deposed or disappeared. Powerful, ruthless interests take over and the revolution is hijacked to an unintended destination.  Yes, things can get worse–and for a long time–as they did in post-revolutionary Russia and China.  I have been to Burma six times in the past five years and I can confirm Aung San Suu Kyi’s near universal popularity. Unfortunately, that may be the only topic of universal agreement in Burma. In a revolutionary scenario, as popular as she is, I still fear for her safety. Impossible?  One need look only at her family history: after World War II,  her father, General Aung San, was leader of the anti-colonial forces, a national hero and Burma’s most beloved figure. He was widely expected to become leader of the country but was assassinated prior to the election. Historians don’t why for sure but most likely the cause was jealousy and political rivalry. Hope was dashed and he became a martyr.

Burma is one of the most difficult countries in the world to govern because of its history, ethnic conflicts and its geography. As one Burmese diplomat told me, like a baby continually and violently moved  from one cradle to another, for the past 150 years Burma  has suffered trauma after trauma and the country has never developed in a normal way. In fact, Burma does need a strong central government. It has one. What it also needs is a more popular government and a more effective economy.  Daw Suu is wise to work within the system to reform Burma’s government. There is the prospect of reform and economic progress at a good price: peaceful change.

Perhaps former General Than Shwe has been thinking about how history will view his leadership. Putting the country on a path to catching up to the economic success of its Asian neighbors would help his legacy immensely. But to do that, like China and Vietnam before it, Burma needs to “open up.” He knows this goal will be achieved only with the participation of Aung San Suu Kyi, or her hand-picked successor.

Wouldn’t it be remarkable if at a time when much of the rest of the world is suffering economic malaise and political fractiousness, Burma had an economic boom and achieved greater political unity? If this is indeed the beginning of a “third way”–and it is successful– might not history see former General Than Shwe and Aung San Sui Kyi as the father and the mother of a modern Burma? Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

The proof of a new policy will be in the benefit to the average Burmese. That still seems far off. Given the repeated suffering and psychic wounds felt by its people, the Burmese should be forgiven their suspicion any meaningful change will happen. They require more evidence.

—Chris Dodge

With Win Pe in Washington DC, 2008

Win Pe used to introduce me to friends, “This is Chris. He is my biographer.” He would say it with a twinkle in his eyes, a little smack of his lips and a tilt of his head. A big smile would appear and then a healthy guffaw– poking fun at us both; at himself for saying he had a biographer and at me for claiming to be one. As if to say, yes, this is a fine idea, let’s go forward but let’s not take ourselves too seriously. After all, we’ll all be swept away before long. This is classic Win Pe. All who know him well will recognize him here. Modest, supportive and thoughtful but, at his best, in his art and in his life, Win Pe is playful and whimsical. He is a good Buddhist: Life is temporary. Grasping is pointless.

Of course, Win Pe is worthy of a biographer, many biographers. They will come along. I just wish to tell some stories about Win Pe.

Everything here is original. My primary source is Win Pe himself. I have interviewed him many, many times over the past four years. Sometimes we just have lunch or coffee and talk as friends. He lives nearby. Ma Thanegi, Kin Maung Yin and Paw Thame–close friends with Win Pe for all of their adult lives–and more recently my friends too, provided background information and specific stories and opinions. Others, in Burma and here in the United States, too many to name, discussed Win Pe with me. I thank them all. I have not sought approval from anyone, including Win Pe, for these writings. Any errors herein are mine alone.

–Chris Dodge

Win Pe had a happy childhood. His parents were garment traders. His father’s family were “pure” Burmese and weathy from his grandfather, who was the King’s representative in Mandalay, a position similar to a modern day city mayor. His great-grandfather was a general in the King’s service. Although Win Pe’s father was a scholar of Burmese culture and art and a “great historian”, regretably “he was not much interested in family history” so not much more is known of the origins of this prominent Mandalay family. Win Pe’s maternal grandmother was a Mon, the ethnic group from lower Burma and his maternal grandfather was from China. So Win Pe is half Burmese and quarter Mon and quarter Chinese. A mix like many Myanmar citizens.

Growing up, Win Pe says, for him, “Music was #1, Painting was #1, Socializing was #1.” Everybody in Mandalay was “crazy for English  boxing.” Win Pe too. He was scheduled for a big boxing tournament but his mother was so afraid for him she couldn’t stop crying so Win Pe’s father forbade him from the tournament, which he says was probably a good thing. He had the heart but maybe not enough talent. That was the end of Win Pe’s fighting.

–Chris Dodge

Win Pe had some friends who were making movies. He would go to the street in Rangoon where his director friends were filming. After watching for a while, he decided he could do it as well or better.  He went onto make 25 movies and became one of Burma’s top film directors. In Burma he may be better known as a film director than as a painter.

Being an easy going guy, Win Pe would always have lots of his friends around when he was shooting a film. It was a big party. Most locations were on the streets of Rangoon. Friends would come by for a drink or some tea. He would cast friends in his movies.  U Aung Soe, the painter, was crazy for the movie business.; Win Pe says he loved it more than painting. He had a movie star personality and he was a good actor but, unfortunately, he had a tiny little voice. Otherwise, he have might have been  a star.

Kin Maung Yin acted in some of Win Pe’s movies and also wrote some scripts. Later he would direct his own movies.  Kin Maung Yin thought Win Pe’s movies were too mainstream, too Hollywood. He preferred serious subjects, like a French or Italian director.

–Chris Dodge

Paw Thame is a displaced Burmese artist in the United States as much as he is an estranged American artist from Upper Burma. The evaluation of Paw Thame against the history of Burmese – or American – art is a tricky task for he belongs to both, yet neither. For close to three decades, he has been away from his country of origin. Understandably, his mark on the current map of Burmese art is faint, if at all. Mainly, he is known as the founder of Peacock Gallery who left for the United States. In the States today, he lives alone in a town of Vietnam War veterans in western Texas, surrounded by plants and animals. He continues to paint, but away from the circuit of biennales and art fairs, his work is virtually unknown in his adopted country despite six exhibitions in Hawaii, Washington DC and Atlanta, not forgetting numerous workshops, talks and panel discussions.

An independent artist who works outside of the histories of Burmese and American art, his oeuvre resides in no man’s land, in a vacuum without echo. He insists that his sole duty is to create; whether his work enjoys brisk sale, is written about, known to the American audience and reintroduced to Burma or not, these are issues of no consequence to him. But the alienization of Paw Thame is not merely the result of geographical displacement, or even his deliberate withdrawal from the limelight; it has multiple causes. Both his non-conformism to either system and the disenfranchisement of Burmese art are at the root of his marginalized status. Apart from his personal decisions that do not favor integration, there are cultural and historical factors at play that are beyond his control. His decision to focus on creation, leaving all questions of reception and gain at the door, may not be as reckless as it seems.

‘Some art critics write about artists the research manner, giving general information, spotlighting some artworks and providing some explanations. Art history books provide more information and are in a more academic-style of writing. The other kind of biography is like an unfinished painting. Most autobiographies are weak. The author tends to highlight the good points and hide his flaws. It is not possible for readers and scholars to know the truth. So one day, if I need to write about myself, I will tell all. Honesty is the best policy, I decided; in all I write, I am telling the truth, real events that took place in the past.’

Paw Thame (1944-) is largely self-taught. A native of Upper Burma, he left for Rangoon in the early 1970s after graduating from the Mandalay University. In 1984, he moved to the United States. During the decade and a half that he was in Rangoon, Paw Thame played a notable role in the capital’s burgeoning art scene. In 1975, he founded Peacock Gallery, the first gallery to be entirely devoted to modern art and a space combining his love for horticulture and art, where some of Rangoon’s most avant-garde artists like Bagyi Aung Soe (1924-1990), Win Pe (1936-), Kin Maung Yin (1938-) and Sonny Nyein (1949-) gathered to spar and to show their works. It was the vanguard of Burma’s modern art movement. There, the artists were exempt from the ruling party’s stringent censorship rules on public exhibitions, as well as free from the mainstream figurative painters’ stifling conservatism. Their highly innovative private shows – paper cut-outs, batik, rare plants, etc. – challenged common perceptions of art at that time. It was a prolific period for all members of the Gallery. Little is however known about its founder Paw Thame’s own body of works. It appears that the gallery’s success, along with that of the school he founded, Language of Vision Art Institute, his emigration, as well as his notorious temper, have overshadowed his achievements as an artist.

Paw Thame the man and the artist is not unknown beyond his immediate circle of fellow artists. Burma’s literary and visual arts circles are closely connected communities and many writers, actors and musicians are aware of him. They have always been. But he was and remains highly selective about the people he frequents and only opens up to a handful of confidants. He is essentially a private man – far from a self-publicist – and does not seek fame in the first place. Although his intractable and perfervid temperament seemingly contributed to his being sidelined in his home country, his oblivion emerges to be voluntary for the most part.[ii] That he has been living and working in the United States for the past twenty-six years, away from the much evolved art scene of Burma has deepened his estrangement and isolation. Not surprisingly, he does not figure amongst the Burmese artists “resurrected” by the increasing number of survey studies, monographs and articles both online and in print, published in Burma and abroad recently –[iii] in spite of the regard he receives from pioneers of the modern movement in Burma. His story remains untold thus far, and he has played no part in the reconstitution of the story of twentieth-century Burmese art,[iv] whose substantial development over the past five years has been in tandem with expanding investigations into senior figures like U Ba Kyi (1912-2000), Bagyi Aung Soe and Paw Oo Thet (1936-1993). Their stories loom large over the current perception of twentieth-century Myanma art, to the extent of determining its shape.

But where archives have little chance of surviving vicissitudes both natural and man-made, as in Burma, oral accounts hold sway and any version of modern Burmese art is necessarily made up of hearsay and memoirs. As such, the story of a handful of “major” artists that is being canonized to become the history of twentieth-century Burmese art remains in fact plagued by assumptions that beg clarification. Perfunctory statements that call for elaboration are many at this ongoing construction site that is the consolidation of the history of Burmese art. At this juncture, it is clear that the account of an active but thus far sidelined participating artist like Paw Thame is precious material for crosschecking data. His way of speaking no-holds-barred exposes the tensions and aspirations within the small community of artists and overturns some long-standing assumptions of fellow artists that have been perpetuated for the sake of propriety. The primary sources for this piece of writing are the email exchanges between Paw Thame and Chris Dodge between October 2008 and March 2009. In first person, these unedited emails between an artist and a trusted friend and patron are highly revelational of the artist’s perspectives on himself, life and art. Though beyond the ambitions of this essay on Paw Thame’s oeuvre – only materials pertaining to his work are here retained, Paw Thame’s revelations that echo aspects of Giorgio Vasari’s biographies, Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, from Cimabue to Our Times, do merit a separate investigation. It is an exceptional witness in a milieu where few if any would call a spade a spade lest it offends. Apart from reinstating Paw Thame as an artist in his own right, his hitherto unknown account serves to further the story of modern Burmese art; it is one of the many but indispensable yarns weaving into the fabric of Burmese art history.

It is with reference to works spread over four decades since the 1970s, from Myitkyina to Rangoon and from Hawaii to Texas that we look at the art of Paw Thame. His art and person being inextricably intertwined, it is useful to first look into his life’s trajectory. Interpretations of events in his life, words, actions and works are inevitable, but these are merely the author’s opinions; interpretations say as much – if not more – about the person making them. They are not absolute and represent no more than one of many possible perspectives on Paw Thame’s life and oeuvre. The extent to which we allow ourselves to play psychotherapist to Paw Thame, delving into his life and interpreting his experiences, is critical indeed; ethical considerations of dissecting an active artist need to be taken into account. (We remember how French writer Jean Genet was plunged into depression and unable to write for almost ten years following Jean-Paul Sartre’s thorough dissection of him in the psychoanalytical biography Saint Genet: comédien et martyr (1952).) With due respect to Paw Thame and in acknowledgement of the writer’s limited knowledge in the field of psychology, these interpretations that aim to suggest possible connections between the artist’s life experiences and his works should not be taken as conclusive. It is next for the reader to exercise his or her discernment and fellow observers and researchers to further the discourse on Paw Thame under the light of new findings and insights. Indeed, this first attempt at telling the story of Paw Thame based on the artist’s memoirs in the form of email exchanges with his friend and patron Chris Dodge is not the definitive story; it marks only the beginning.

Many Minds, Many Worlds

‘You can see. My life is like my painting with many colors: some terrible, some good, some bad, all mixed up.’

Mandalay was Paw Thame’s art school, part of the larger, continual class that began in Shwebo in Upper Burma and continues in Texas today. There, through printed matter from the university library, he reached out to novel twentieth-century avant-garde art forms and concepts; there in the country’s former capital, he met like-minded friends and teachers for the first time. In retrospect, he was inspired by the works of only three Burmese artists – Kin Maung (Bank), Win Pe and later Bagyi Aung Soe from Rangoon, but was fascinated by countless artists from the West: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Nolde, Klee, Matisse, Miro, Dali, Chagall, Duchamp, Rothko, Gorky, de Kooning, Pollock, Rauschenberg, Warhol, Calder, Lichtenstein, and many more – not to mention his admiration for the old masters. It does not matter that Kin Maung (Bank)’s approach to painting and style is in start contrast to Bagyi Aung Soe’s, or that Pollock and Warhol had diametrically different takes on art. Paw Thame was equally intrigued. Varied art forms are at the root of Paw Thame’s experimentations in modern art:

‘I would look a million times. Then I ask myself why they did this, why they decided on that, why they chose such color combinations, how they got this idea, mood, inspiration. I would research their techniques, and think over and over again.’

With each artist, he entered a new world. With each mode of representation, he saw the world in a new light. The different representational modes and colors allowed him to express distinct frames of mind; the gamut of Paw Thame’s experiences found voice in twentieth century’s stylistic potpourri. Indeed, Paw Thame’s openness for new experiences is paralleled by his receptivity of pictorial idioms, as well as his versatility in expression. Till today, he adopts a humble attitude towards new art forms and fellow artists both young and old.[v] Assuming that the Gerard Kelly and Chris Dodge collections are representative of Paw Thame’s evolution, his oeuvre over three decades since the 1970s presents great stylistic and thematic eclecticism. If anything, it is uniformity and repetition that turn the artist off; he sees a serious artist as one who constantly pushes the boundaries by adapting novel modes of representation – even questioning them. Paw Thame has no respect for an artist who paints the same subject matter repeatedly in the same palette and composition. He equates such behavior as the breaking of the artist’s oath; it makes more sense ‘to sit under a tree and do nothing’. In fact, he defines “modernism” – a term that continues to invite debate and criticism – as the pursuit of new representational modes.

There are nonetheless recurrent manners and leitmotivs that prevail beneath the stylistic and thematic diversity. It is also possible to suggest – if not identify – the dominant influences on Paw Thame and the characteristics of his style that were being forged and strengthened in the process of experimentation. During the 1960s in Mandalay, when Paw Thame was on the threshold of modern art and reading voraciously, he was most impressed by Win Pe’s designs and compositions and the graphic quality of Kin Maung (Bank)’s works: solid colors, flat planes and clean lines. Into the 1970s in Rangoon, Paw Thame continued to display a marked penchant for the simplification of form into geometric shapes that harks back to Cézanne’s premise to ‘treat nature by the cylinder, the sphere, the cone’. Certain works from the middle of the 1970s continue to display close stylistic affinities with the works of Win Pe, Kin Maung (Bank) and Paw Oo Thet, another artist from Mandalay who had moved to Rangoon before Paw Thame and with whom there is no love lost.[vi] With much attention to balance, the pictorial surface is scrupulously divided into flat surfaces of color that translate into architectural structures; the subject matter primarily revolves around Burmese village scenes and emerging townscapes where traditional architectural structures compete with urban concrete buildings, as epitomized by Kin Maung (Bank)’s Mandalay Zaycho (fig. 1). They bear many resemblances to the Ludu book covers published by Mandalay’s literary giants Ludu U Hla and his wife Daw Ah Mar – many of which are by Win Pe and Paw Oo Thet, and raise the question of whether the geometric simplification of form could be hailed as a Mandalay legacy, given the Mandalay origin of its main exponents.

Paw Thame claims that he found his style as early as 1970 when traveling and painting in Myitkyina in the Kachin State along the borders of India and China, just after coming out of jail the first time and before settling down in Rangoon. His friends, mentors and patrons – Win Pe, Kin Maung (Bank), Gerald Kelly, etc. – were convinced at a very early stage that Paw Thame had his own style despite his diverse stylistic experimentations. For one, his palette and brushstrokes were considered bold in a way that was rarely seen in Burma. Indeed, Paw Thame had his own mind: his fascination with the simplification of form did not stop at Kin Maung (Bank) or Paw Oo Thet’s version of meticulously delineated shapes and planned palette. He further explored the fusion of line and color: his strokes gain expressivity, and pictorial balance is achieved through the overall interplay of line and color(figs. 4-6), rather than the rigor of an immaculately designed composition and a carefully coordinated color scheme (figs. 2, 3). While the senior artists mainly applied the simplification and fragmentation of form to architectural structures and silhouettes, Paw Thame used this method of picturing the world on human figures, boats and many other objects whose natural forms rebel against the grid. Indeed, Paw Thame was a master of both perpendicular and curved lines: undulating lines and playful shapes translate the hustle and bustle of a festival scene, while slices of flat colors assert and exalt the bulk of fishing boats (figs. 7, 8). Depending on the subject matter and the artist’s intention, colors range from cool tertiary hues to fiery oranges (figs. 9-11). It was not an artist who blindly applies just any proven method; his vision morphed in response to the image formed on his retina, and his technique adapted accordingly from thin washes of paint to impasto.

By the early 1980s, after ten years in Rangoon, Paw Thame had moved beyond the dominantly analytical approach to painting – carefully balanced composition with colors enclosed within well-defined outlines – to embrace a more emotive and dynamic one. The brushstrokes are applied as if in frenzy, much like de Kooning’s Women series from the early 1950s. The bold and contrasting colors are no longer contained within painstakingly defined shapes; they spill over. Indeed, colors and brushstrokes become one in this new painting of Paw Thame. In these intersections of brushstrokes and colors, it is quite impossible to identify any recognizable object (figs. 11-16). When the painting is not abstract, there are only organic forms (figs. 14, 15), as if in reaction to the earlier phase of geometric simplification. Paw Thame claims that Bagyi Aung Soe’s art has been one of the major influences on him. Could this growing inclination towards free brushstrokes have been spurred by his exchanges with the Rangoon artist? With Sonny Nyein’s arrangements, Bagyi Aung Soe spent much time painting and showing at Peacock Gallery. It is well-known that the two fathers of modern art in Burma, Kin Maung (Bank) and Bagyi Aung Soe, adopted radically different approaches to painting: one was methodical while the other was spontaneous.

The late 1970s and early 1980s were extremely fruitful years for Paw Thame: he moved Peacock Gallery to the outskirts of Rangoon where he set up a nursery together with the gallery and he ventured to marry. The years before he left for the United States were truly the gallery’s most memorable period. Shows centered on specific themes – batik, exotic plants and pop art, for example – were organized on a regular basis. This vibrancy is paralleled in his oeuvre. On top of the major shift from the analytical and geometric to the expressive and psychedelic, Paw Thame was exploring myriad modes of representation with total disregard for their chronological progression. He worked on paintings inspired by the color-field theories of Rothko, alongside portraits and still-lifes (figs. 17-19). That abstraction and the classical figurative tradition are situated on opposing ends of the history of Western art did not tamper his decision. Like other non-Euramerican artists of his generation in Burma and beyond, the entire compendium of Western art was his smorgasbord and playground. These foreign art forms represented no historical baggage whatsoever to the artists residing outside of Euramerica, and they were hence able to focus entirely on the idioms’ visual aspects.

Following Paw Thame’s move to Hawaii in 1984 and into the 1990s, there is a significant retreat from abstraction that was a salient aspect of his oeuvre from the early 1980s. In its place is the triumph of figurative painting. The prominence once given to free expressive brushstrokes has also faded noticeably. Instead, there is a return to an analytical approach with angular geometric forms. New subject matter emerged: American interiors and street scenes (figs. 20-25), as well as icons of Burmese culture: the Mandalay Palace moat, teak monasteries, brick temples of Pagan, market vendors of farm produce, figures in ethnic dress, performers of classical Burmese theatre, etc. (figs. 26-34) The new themes correspond to the exploration of new sights and sensations on the one hand, and homesickness on the other. Although it is not the first time that Paw Thame attempts this repertoire of Burmese cultural icons that is the métier of “Scott Market artists” – whose works are expressly made for the tourist eager for souvenirs of exotic Burma, its exploitation intensified in the United States. Using different media, techniques and modes of representation, he sought to rekindle familiar images from home. The traditional monastery building that is found in large numbers in and around Mandalay, for example, is represented using oil and watercolor – the latter bearing an uncanny resemblance to Paw Thame’s early works that were executed under the influence of Kin Maung (bank), Win Pe or Paw Oo Thet (figs. 26, 27). As if through painting, Paw Thame could be transported back to Burma to relive his adventures amongst the ethnic minorities in Myitkyina, the serenity of monastery grounds, the sounds and smells of the local market; it is as if ties with his people and home were being renewed and strengthened through painting. To date, the artist still misses the home he shared with friends and students.[vii]

In adopting specific modes of representation, media and techniques, Paw Thame exploited the formal characteristics particular to each of them to imbue a picture with specific moods. The exploration of styles had begun in the 1960s with studies of reproductions of avant-garde works from the West and the observation of works by some of Mandalay’s foremost modern painters. Through practice, Paw Thame became increasingly versatile and a master of styles: he knew – to borrow a term from linguistics – the “linguistic competence” and limits of each mode of representation, and he used them intently. Progressively, his paintings came to be beyond representation and abstraction; they are simply pictures of his wandering mind, as can be seen in the previously discussed works from the 1990s (figs. 20-34). Paw Thame’s works from the last decade makes it even clearer that his paintings are snapshots of his mind: musings over Burma’s last royal family whose faces have been obliterated by history, a reminder of the humiliation endured under foreign occupation, meditations on specific concepts and forms, musings on life and social injustice, and more flashbacks to Burma (fig. 35-43).

The void left by Paw Thame’s first and second loves and new financial constraints most certainly affected his outlook, lifestyle and art. His most recent works reflect a maturity that has more to do with approach than style per se. Mostly in ink, pencil and pastel, there is a homogeneity in style that marks the arrival of a signature style: powerful lines, majestic forms and structures, and rigorous spatial organization through the adroit distribution of forms and colors (figs. 44-51). The palette also presents a richer and wider range of transition tones which provides a greater sense of depth to the image (figs. 43-45). The sense of drama, agitation and violence that ignited earlier works is now replaced by an aura of radiant quietness. While Kin Maung (Bank)’s brand of geometric fragmentation is largely founded upon the perpendicular, Paw Thame’s genius is the use of diagonals which lends a sense of movement to the representation of architectural structures and still-lives (figs. 47-50). In Paw Thame’s latest works, balance and dynamism co-exist. Building upon the foundations laid by senior artists, Paw Thame moved on to develop his own pictorial language.

The One World That is Art

Even when under the influence of works by other artists during the phase of experimentation, Paw Thame thought no more of what he had seen once he began his own painting. It certainly did not matter what and how he was painting – whether they were village huts from Burma or American skyscrapers from two different sides of the globe, whether it is using pastel or oil: he was one with painting. Given the profound intimacy of the process, it is no surprise that he has difficulty parting with his work. When – and if – he does revisit it in another time and space, the encounter is akin to meeting a love long lost, an experience provoking bemusement and inviting reminiscence.

While living by the principles of painting as Paw Thame claims to do, he also brings painting into his living environment:

‘I think about this house as my canvas. I painted all my driveways, walkways, even on the roof, in all different colors, different designs. I change every year; I am painting all year round. […] I think about my car as an empty canvas. I decorate just as I am creating a painting. Same thing.’

No doubt, art gives Paw Thame direction and structure to his life. It is more than a profession for him; it is the bridge that connects him with fellow human beings. Through art, he is able to put behind him the trauma of excessive responsibility as a child and to quell the destructive anger whose roots are similarly buried in childhood[viii] to display the immense generosity and tenderness that few have the chance of knowing, save his closest friends and students whom he treats like his own children. It is a bounteousness that accommodates even plants. In fact, the primary reason for setting up Peacock Gallery was to exhibit and sell the works of his students, so as to bring them greater confidence, as well as to arouse their parents’ interest in art and inspire their respect for it eventually. His best friends – Win Pe, Sonny Nyein and Ma Thanegi, for example – were all made through and for art. It is his lifeline and the beacon that guides his person, way of life and dealings with the rest of the world.

In the Fringe

Paw Thame’s unsparing personality was prone to being misunderstood in Burmese society.   While his free spirit and disregard for societal norms earned him the respect of a handful of individuals, they triggered the condemnation of many in a society that emphasizes communal living. His straightforward and outspoken nature was also often interpreted as offensive in this culture where discretion is highly valued. Of a highly explosive temper that is incomprehensible to Paw Thame himself, he does not benefit from the kind of good reputation enjoyed by the outwardly gracious Paw Oo Thet, suave Win Pe and even-tempered Kin Maung (Bank).   The fact that none of his students – who number hundreds – became prominent artists did nothing to review his position in the history of Burmese art. With time, his name passed into limbo – if not for the memory of his friends from Peacock Gallery.

Yet, Paw Thame embodies some of the most quintessential qualities of the modern Burmese artist: his insistence on “purity” and “sincerity”, his disdain for the art market and his propensity for stylistic eclecticism. The last trait is common to the majority of artists working outside of Euramerican centers who felt free to experiment with an array of idioms from the West irrespective of their contextual significances. While qualities like “purity” and “sincerity” are likely to raise an eyebrow if listed as criteria for good art in the West, they remain a touchstone for artists in Burma and are leitmotivs in their discourses on art. They are not Paw Thame’s invention. Finally, in his conviction that money would destroy art – the reason why he worked hard to earn money from avenues other than art to finance artistic creation, Paw Thame is far from alone. The fiercest detractor against mixing art and money is probably Bagyi Aung Soe, the enfant terrible of modern Burmese art. There is also Kin Maung Yin whom Paw Thame applauds as a “true painter” and who is held in high respect by all in Burma for the “purity” of his approach to painting. Like Paw Thame, although he is not against selling his work, it is against his principles to paint with the intention of monetary gain. Akin to the Chinese literati painters who placed painting above wealth and status, they would rather do without money than make money out of art – not because they despise money, but because they find it unconscionable to use painting to make gain.

The reluctance to engage in the art market by Burma’s most prominent exponents of modern art has to do with the country’s cultural inclinations and historical particularities. Under the alleged socialist government from 1962 to 1988, the sale of artworks was limited to the handful of official exhibitions held by the government, private parties organized by diplomats and artist-run galleries; it is not possible to speak of professional art dealers and an art market in Burma until the turn of the century. Isolated for almost four decades, the artists inside Burma developed their own ideals and practice according to Buddhist philosophy that permeates their culture – from which ground rules like “purity” and “sincerity” have been derived, independently of the world outside. To this generation of artist at least, art has a spiritual and moral dimension above all else; Buddhist representations are the matrix around which all others are organized. These credos are not necessarily compatible with the capitalist underpinnings of international art.

In the United States, Paw Thame was thrown into a new art world whose rules he did not know how to embrace. For one, coming from Burma whose art curriculum remains at least half a century behind time, he is unschooled in rhetoric, dialectic and many other disciplines that make the core of artists’ training in any Western art institution. When he first arrived in Hawaii, unable to accept the galleries’ terms and conditions, he would rather peddle his works at touristic spots like the zoo, even if it meant he would make no sale. He continued to absent himself from the American art market – less than ten exhibitions in twenty-six years – and his works remained outside the circuit of high art as a result. The price of his refusal to mix art and money: to be obliged to spend much energy and time on matters other than art for survival, as well as to be condemned to being kept on the threshold of prestigious art establishments reserved for artists who play the game according to the prescribed rules. His condition is not the result of any assessment based on the merits of his oeuvre.

‘I found amateur artists’ paintings, Sunday painters’ paintings with their original outer frames. I do not care about their subject matter, technique, size, pigment quality, damages, medium. I really care about their soul, their spirit, their mood of years ago that are maybe now gone. I went to the store many times. I looked again and again. I gave all my time until I caught their spirit.’

In truth, what matters to Paw Thame is the integrity of the work, not whether it is in the collection of a reputable gallery or museum, or whether its maker enjoys the title of “professional artist”. Indeed, his acquiescence to being an amateur artist – just so that his relationship with painting is shielded against all external interferences, whether commercial or institutional – is incomprehensible to actors of the international art world; it is beyond them. With a similar stance, he appears ill-disposed to compete in the international arena; he fits not into the biennales – spectacles and circuses of contemporary urban culture – that are de rigueur. He does not speak the language. According to the rules of the game defined by an art history shaped by the Euramerican experience, even his stylistic versatility amounts to no more than artistic immaturity. The values esteemed by Paw Thame and his fellow artists in Burma are indeed context-specific. They have little currency outside of Burma and are mostly irrelevant in the United States where Paw Thame has been residing for more than a quarter of a century. Alas, the trajectories and priorities of artists outside the centers of international art – and finance – are often swept under the carpet. Their stories of art remain to be told, although attempts at an art history that is a palimpsest of paradigms old and new (East and West) are being made. Till then, artists like Paw Thame either dance to the tune of a single story of art – that defined by Euramerica, or opt out.

It is unlikely that history would look at Paw Thame’s oeuvre as American instead of Burmese, but neither is his oeuvre nor person necessarily “authentically” Burmese in the eyes of those who make the rules for art. Admittedly, Paw Thame’s universal disposition fits ill into the currently widespread parochial approach to art, whose modus operandi is to contain artists and their works within national brackets and types, and whose claims of the “international” still neglect the development of apparatus necessary to accommodate nations and cultures beyond Euramerica on the same footing. Paw Thame’s singularity lies precisely in his defiance of definitions and categorizations. It is his oeuvre as well as the trajectory behind it that should serve as the yardstick for his place in the story of art, not peripheral indications like the definition of the professional artist or the frequency of participation in biennales and art fairs – facile systems of calibration that might serve the immediate purposes of quantification but neither enhance the quality of appreciation, nor contribute to the theoretical framework of art in the long run. Let the work of Paw Thame speak. It is long overdue.

Yin Ker

Shanghai, August 2010

Yin Ker is a Ph.D. candidate on the oeuvre of Bagyi Aung Soe. Her research interests include the narratives of art beyond the centres of Euramerica and the Buddha mind in modern and contemporary art. Her previous projects include Video: An Art, A History from the Centre Pompidou and Singapore Art Museum Collections, plAy: Art From Myanmar Today, MC1: Montpellier-China Biennale of Contemporary Chinese Art and From Callot to Greuze: French Drawings from Weimar .