• Burmese
Thursday, July 10, 2025
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Irrawaddy
26 °c
Yangon
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
No Result
View All Result
The Irrawaddy
No Result
View All Result
Home Culture Arts

Healing Images: Exhibition Showcases Works by Art Therapy Patients

MYINT MYAT THU by MYINT MYAT THU
August 22, 2019
in Arts
Reading Time: 5 mins read
0 0
A A
Portraits of artist Nyo Min Win at the exhibition, The Room's one of the talented artists / The Irrawaddy

Portraits of artist Nyo Min Win at the exhibition, The Room's one of the talented artists / The Irrawaddy

7.5k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

At the opening night of “The Room”, an exhibition of paintings by mental health patients, a small group of artists were standing in front of a painting, looking amused. Suddenly, one of them took it down, then put it back. The same painting, but a different picture now—someone had just hung it right-side up.

The 70 eccentrically effortless, overly original pieces at the exhibition make up just one-sixth of the growing collection at the Aung Clinic. Medical doctor-turned-artist Dr. Aung Min and psychiatrist Dr. San San Oo—the husband and wife owners of the clinic—live in a home large enough for a family of four. But their nest is getting smaller as the number of paintings grows bigger after every weekly art therapy session. The canvases have begun to swallow up their living room. But the couple cannot bring themselves to discard a single picture, or dismiss any as “insane”.

“It would take many decades for an educated artist to get the same level of expression,” Tuula Mehtonen, the video-editing mentor at the Yangon Film School, told The Irrawaddy.

RelatedPosts

Chinese Artist Cashes In on Buddha-Like Trump Statues

Chinese Artist Cashes In on Buddha-Like Trump Statues

January 13, 2025
1.9k
The Marble ‘Living Buddhas’ Trapped by Myanmar’s Civil War

The Marble ‘Living Buddhas’ Trapped by Myanmar’s Civil War

November 5, 2024
833
Hip Hop Artist Recalls Her Husband’s Execution in Myanmar: ‘We didn’t say goodbye’   

Hip Hop Artist Recalls Her Husband’s Execution in Myanmar: ‘We didn’t say goodbye’   

July 22, 2024
5.5k
Virbatns paintings of mental health patients at JoZaSo, Substainable Tourism Hub.(Photo: The Irrawaddy)

Mehtonen was referring to untitled portrait of a female. The subject looks at once like a grey-faced, thin-lipped woman exuding the deformed joy of a younger soul, and a young girl with a ballooned body and big perfect circular eyes, staring into another’s eyes. Her presence seems threatened. So the artist Myo hides her in a background of playful rainbow colors.

“It figured out an extremely weak and vulnerable state of mind. We all have this hidden side in us. It was like a layer of myself behind many other layers,” added Mehtonen, who purchased the portrait at the exhibition.

Born in 1978, Myo has been suffering from a severe mental disorder since he was 18. The years he spent at the Ywar Thar Gyi Mental Hospital—including several rounds of Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)—could not free him from his wild imagination.

“In psychiatric hospitals here, patients with severe illnesses are crammed in small rooms, which are like prison cells. Sometimes there are 20 to 30 people in one room, and some are chained and handcuffed,” Dr. San San Oo said. “They will be given one medication for anger. Another different one for depression. And another one for delusion. As their modes change, the medication changes. If someone who is sane didn’t go mad any minute there, that would be a miracle,” Dr. San San Oo told The Irrawaddy.

Nyo Min’s Win’s portraits of world famous icons.(Photo: The Irrawaddy)

Insanity can be a symptom of creativity, or it can be transformed into it. But for Dr. Aung Min, the goal of art therapy should never be “to freely give a madman a paintbrush and a canvas”, or the pursuit of today’s much coveted “creative” status. Rather, he wanted to create a room at the clinic—the “Room” of the exhibition’s title—which might be small but has unbounded emotional latitude to explore the uncharted territory of our minds, and where we can reconcile with ourselves through art. For Dr. Aung Min, this is where true creativity begins.

On the day Myo arrived at The Room housing the clinic’s art therapy program in 2012, he drew a picture of a person in the “anatomy drawing 101” style you might expect from a child in a nursery: a round-faced bony guy, standing up with his limbs stretched straight. Without his spiky locks he could easily be sexless.

Seven years on, Myo still draws exactly the same picture (his female portrait at the exhibition is a very rare creation) unfailingly on every art therapy day. But his spiky anatomy guy became more flamboyant as the medium changed from paper to canvas after the Open Society Foundation (OSF) funded the Aung Clinic’s community-based art therapy project in 2016.

Dr. Aung Min assisting his patients in painting in one of his art therapy sessions. (Photo: The Irrawaddy)

“My peer psychiatrists from abroad consider this repetition as something unique.
They believe that it carries their basic emotions, and that the way they interpret their suffering is very strong,” Dr. San San Oo explained.

Myo is not alone in that. Tin, who was once tormented by hallucinations of blood and guts, sees the canvas as a portal to visualize the face of an unnamed man. He later said that, in his mind, it is actually a sitting woman. His paintings, since 2015, usually have a single haunting color. Over a blank area, anxious brush strokes are applied to indicate eyebrows, eyes, mouth and nose.

Comic, but also confusing, his works even intimidate an established artist like Than Kyaw Htay. “I was thrown off by his colors. These paintings are subtle, yet arresting. For me, it is the not the physical color, but the color of the unconscious. To take these colors deep out of your mind and let them flow freely on the canvas is quite a daunting task for me, as an artist.” Than Kyaw Htay paused for a while, and said, “Honestly, it is frustrating even to imagine. It is very difficult to understand your feelings even when you can see them. But it is far more difficult to understand them through colors.”

Well-known artist Khin Zaw Latt, with 18 years of experience under his belt, can do nothing but acknowledge this hard reality. “With all the theories in your head after years of study and working, it is just near-impossible to keep them from interfering. It’s like you just can’t go back to the first days you drew as a kid.”

A group of mental health patients are seen, painting at the morning art therapy session.(Photo: The Irrawaddy)

Early on, Dr. Aung Min had an artist in his clinic to guide his patients. This only led to the realization that teaching patients rules, like color theory, is likely to turn a mildly insane person full-blown mad. Dr. Aung Min didn’t see himself as a potential art therapist until a foreign expert pointed out that he was made for the task. He is a physician, who tried his hand as a novelist, and a renowned screenwriter and filmmaker with a number of artistic pursuits. He could be overqualified in fact.

“The basic rule here is to never force patients to draw or to teach them. It they don’t want to, they can do other activities like writing poems, as long as it can put their mind on track, and it is silent,” Aung Min said.

“While doing art therapy, always get the final product out of your head. When you begin to worry if your painting is good, it will overtake your enjoyment of the process. We are stressed out by all the sensory controls when we are awake. So just let them go,” Khin Zaw Latt commented.

The funding of OSF will end in 2020. Dr. San San Oo hoped the positive outcomes they are now seeing will help to sustain The Room—and expand it—in the future. “Our patients are now convinced that they can express their feelings on the canvas. They might not be able to interpret everything at one sitting. But it encourages their potential eventually. Their sense of achievement and self-worth grow. These are the foundations of happiness,” she said with a smile.

It was an overcast evening in Chinatown, drizzling pleasantly. But inside the high-ceilinged heritage home a techicolor atmosphere prevailed at the opening event of “The Room”, with the artists mingling among visitors. Seen through the wide-framed windows from outside in the rain, every painting, unschooled and pure, was redolent of the triumph of humanity.

Dr. Aung Min at his art therapy session, The Room, opened at his home (Photo: The Irrawaddy)

For Mehtonen, Myo’s untitled portrait of a female reminded her of a song. “What comes to my mind when I watch this painting is Bob Dylan’s ‘Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall’: ‘Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son, what have you seen…’” Mehtonen continues, “I hope he will keep painting.”

“The Room” exhibition is ongoing at JoSaZo, also known as the Sustainable Tourism Hub, on Bo Ywe Street (Upper Block), in Yangon’s Latha Township, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The organizers were unable to provide a specific time frame for the exhibition, but all the paintings are expected to be on display for a few more months.

Your Thoughts …
Tags: Artart therapyExhibitionMental Healthmental illnessPainting
MYINT MYAT THU

MYINT MYAT THU

Contributor

Similar Picks:

Hip Hop Artist Recalls Her Husband’s Execution in Myanmar: ‘We didn’t say goodbye’   
Interview

Hip Hop Artist Recalls Her Husband’s Execution in Myanmar: ‘We didn’t say goodbye’   

by Nyein Nyein
July 22, 2024
5.5k

“Every year I tell myself, and sometimes my friends, here comes July. The anniversary of injustice.”

Read moreDetails
A Compelling Chronicle of Myanmar’s Rich Cinematic History
Books

A Compelling Chronicle of Myanmar’s Rich Cinematic History

by Bertil Lintner
May 20, 2024
3.5k

Films have always provided Myanmar people with a way “to look at the past through a fancy new lens but...

Read moreDetails
Exhibition Details Myanmar Medical Heroes’ Challenges in War Zone
Burma

Exhibition Details Myanmar Medical Heroes’ Challenges in War Zone

by The Irrawaddy
October 7, 2023
2.1k

The Indivisible photography exhibition in the Thai city of Chiang Mai aims to raise funds for medics caring for resistance...

Read moreDetails
Chinese Artist Cashes In on Buddha-Like Trump Statues
World

Chinese Artist Cashes In on Buddha-Like Trump Statues

by AFP
January 13, 2025
1.9k

Designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi sells porcelain versions of Trump, cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the...

Read moreDetails
NOT FOR SALE: Chin Heritage Textiles Collection Exhibited in Chiang Mai
Culture

NOT FOR SALE: Chin Heritage Textiles Collection Exhibited in Chiang Mai

by The Irrawaddy
August 31, 2023
1.2k

A selection of 100 textiles and other objects from Yangon’s Yo Ya May shop is on display at the exhibition...

Read moreDetails
Myanmar Artist, Veteran Democracy Activist Sitt Nyein Aye Dies Aged 68
Obituaries

Myanmar Artist, Veteran Democracy Activist Sitt Nyein Aye Dies Aged 68

by The Irrawaddy
September 8, 2023
1.1k

The Mandalay native passed away in the US on Sept. 1, leaving important legacies as both a modernist painter and...

Read moreDetails
Load More
Next Post
Sen-Gen Min Aung Hlaing (right) meets with Chinese Ambassador Chen Hai in Naypyitaw on Thursday.  / Office of the Commander-in-Chief’s website 

Chinese Ambassador Says Beijing Stands with Myanmar on Rohingya Issue

Bullet shells are seen after fighting at the Naung Cho police outpost on Aug. 15, 2019. / Zaw Zaw / The Irrawaddy

Venerable Myanmar EAO Leaders Plead for End to Fighting

No Result
View All Result

Recommended

37 Years and Counting: Why Has Myanmar’s Democracy Struggle Taken So Long?

37 Years and Counting: Why Has Myanmar’s Democracy Struggle Taken So Long?

1 week ago
1.4k
China’s Surveillance State Watches Everyone, Everywhere

China’s Surveillance State Watches Everyone, Everywhere

2 days ago
773

Most Read

  • Chin Resistance Tensions Boil Over as CNA Seizes Rival’s Myanmar HQ

    Chin Resistance Tensions Boil Over as CNA Seizes Rival’s Myanmar HQ

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • ‘Reforms Are Not Optional’: Prominent Activist Urges NUG to Act Before It’s Too Late

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Trump’s Tariffs to Hit Myanmar’s Garment Manufacturers Hard

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar Junta’s Top Russian Arms Supplier Tosses in Quake ‘Donation’

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Chinese Investment Reshapes Myanmar’s N. Shan as MNDAA Consolidates Power

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Newsletter

Get The Irrawaddy’s latest news, analyses and opinion pieces on Myanmar in your inbox.

Subscribe here for daily updates.

Contents

  • News
  • Politics
  • War Against the Junta
  • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
  • Conflicts In Numbers
  • Junta Crony
  • Ethnic Issues
  • Asia
  • World
  • Business
  • Economy
  • Election 2020
  • Elections in History
  • Cartoons
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Commentary
  • Guest Column
  • Analysis
  • Letters
  • In Person
  • Interview
  • Profile
  • Dateline
  • Specials
  • Myanmar Diary
  • Women & Gender
  • Places in History
  • On This Day
  • From the Archive
  • Myanmar & COVID-19
  • Intelligence
  • Myanmar-China Watch
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Food
  • Fashion & Design
  • Videos
  • Photos
  • Photo Essay
  • Donation

About The Irrawaddy

Founded in 1993 by a group of Myanmar journalists living in exile in Thailand, The Irrawaddy is a leading source of reliable news, information, and analysis on Burma/Myanmar and the Southeast Asian region. From its inception, The Irrawaddy has been an independent news media group, unaffiliated with any political party, organization or government. We believe that media must be free and independent and we strive to preserve press freedom.

  • Copyright
  • Code of Ethics
  • Privacy Policy
  • Team
  • About Us
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Burmese

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Business
    • Economy
    • Business Roundup
  • Books
  • Donation

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.