To
order or enquire now please click here
to go to
our ordering page and choose your
Cards
Back
to Top of Page
*********
Brush
Strokes
...Frank Norel goes
looking for original paintings at
Bogyoke Aung San Market in Yangon...
Bogyoke Aung
San Market has a fascinating range of paintings from hand-painted greeting
cards, to the canvas copies of famous Myanmar paintings to original canvas
paintings by well-known and not so well known painters.
There are four shops, adjacent to each other, selling hand painted greeting
cards. One of the four shops is run by proprietor and artist U Kyaw Than who has
been a painter for over 44 years. He opened when the market opened in 1972. He
makes hand painted greeting cards, birthday cards, seasonal cards, including
Christmas and New Year. All have Myanmar settings of people, places and things.
All are hand painted in watercolours or oils, gold foil or professional
photographs. His best season is Christmas when he sells over 4,000 cards.
For the rest of the year, sales depend on the ebb and flow of the tourists.
He also sells works of many of his artist friends, such as Soe Than. Soe Than
has 30 different greeting card paintings in water colour. Another friend is Mg
Yan Naing. About 12 of U Kyaw Than’s friends display at his shop.
U Kyaw Than is a member of the Artists and Artisans Association that holds
exhibitions regularly, usually every two weeks, in the back of his place. This
is the association’s sales centre: most of the present famous Myanmar painters
started here.
The relative isolation of Myanmar over the last several decades means that
Myanmar’s original paintings are truly indigenous and uninfluenced by foreign
developments. This is good in that the art is truly Myanmar. Myanmar painters
thus have their own style and methods.
Most of the artwork is done in watercolours or oils. The motifs in most cases
are rural village life and Buddhist Temples, Pagodas and Monks. They depict
Myanmar manners, customs and scenes.
The best known Myanmar artist overseas would probably be Mm Wae Aung. He
recognises a problem for painters in Myanmar which is that the country has few
art collectors. Foreign diplomats and companies buy most paintings. And all they
want is souvenir paintings of Myanmar
Art gallery owner U Myint Lwin mentions that Singaporeans buy paintings from
Myanmar and then sell them at auctions in
Singapore at prices four times higher then what they paid for them!
For the tourist this is good news. Buy now and be proud of the deal you have
made. Buy what you like and like what you buy. The prices you pay now will soon
be impossible in the future as more and more Myanmar painters are holding
exhibitions overseas and gaining recognition for the artistic quality and
uniqueness of their work.
Another art outlet, Ivy Gallery has mostly original paintings by such artists as
Aung Kyaw Oo, Tun Naing, Me Me Aung, Kwaw Wai, Bogei and Phone Kyi.
Spread out in the market are Ivy I, run by Myat Mm, Ivy II, run by Myint Zu Aye
and Ivy III, run by Ma Thet Thet. All have originals and some copies thrown in.
The copies of more famous works are also a good buy as good artists to
supplement their income do most of these.
Ma Thet Thet became an arts distributor in 1996. She buys most originals by
Myanmar painters at exhibitions and copies from artists who bring them in. Other
artists’ works to look for include Kyaw Thaung, U Lun Gywe and Tin Muang Oo.
With thanks to Frank
Norel and Air Mandalay's "Golden Fight" magazine
Back
to Top of Page
