Myanmar [Burmese] Artists | Phyu Mon

Born 1960 in Mandalay, Phyu Mon graduated from Mandalay University with a Bachelor of Arts and studied painting under the master artist U Ba Thaw between 1978 and 1979. She was introduced to video and film production through a programme from the University of Finland. Her hybrid of conceptual art – identified through a surreal edge – is a result of her feminism and social activism that have influenced her much sought-after works about the relationship between Myanma's cultural environment and its economically conflicted and contested identity that have resulted in most of the population living in poverty. Phyu Mon is one of the very few women artists in Myanmar who currently works with digital photography – a medium that has propelled her to address the angst that many Myanmar women experience. She has been a regular participant in exhibitions since 1985 and as an emerging artist; she represents a new breed of Myanmar artists who openly express their restrictive state with broad meanings. Phyu Mon is also a performance artist and is a renowned poet in her native Myanmar language.