RANGOON — Vivid memories of expansive green fields and quaint villages never faded for Chan Nyein Kyaw, an artist now known simply as CNK. For years he worked as a staffer for the Department of Agriculture, visiting some of Burma’s most picturesque countryside.
When he took up painting later on, CNK found that the images poured naturally out of his mind and onto the canvas. Seventy-one of these personal and nostalgic artworks will be on display in a solo exhibition in Rangoon, opening on March 6.
“These are the outcomes of what I see in my mind’s eye of the places I have been,” he said, adding that he takes some creative license when depicting his memories. “The colors I used are different from reality, because I painted them the way I feel about those places.”
CNK, who is now 56 years old, said that the new show will be his 10th solo exhibition, and focuses thematically on rural scenery and abstract images.
While much of CNKs work is representational, he explained that abstraction is liberating for him as an artist.
“I’ve found that if I put a subject in a painting, I feel that I lose freedom as I need to be careful when depicting the form,” he said. CNK often refers to his paintings as “dreamscapes,” because they picture a world that oscillates somewhere between reality and imagination, making them both strange and familiar at once.
“You might have seen something similar,” he said, “but not the same.”
The CNK Solo Art Show 2015 will be on view from March 6 to 10 at Gallery Sixty-Five, located at 65 Yaw Min Gyi Road in Rangoon’s Dagon Township. Gallery hours are 10am to 6pm daily.
