Opening Reception
25 February 2022
at Nova Contemporary, Rejdamri Rd., Bangkok

Nova Contemporary is pleased to announce The Broken White Umbrella, Sawangwongse Yawnghwe’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, which presents a new body of work that represents the artist’s response to contemporary events in Burma. The internationally-exhibited artist is known for artwork that explicitly commentates on the dynamics of transnational politics, however, in The Broken White Umbrella the artist offers a distinctly softer and more personal perspective, one year on from the 2021 military coup.

Building upon a lifetime of sourcing and collecting photographs, stories, and memories has resulted in the artist’s complete entwinement with the history of family and of his country. Here, Yawnghwe (b. 1971, Burma) takes eight archival images from early-mid twentieth century Burma, and in relating them on canvas, creates new modernist compositions with Barnett Newman-like bands of color.

In this most recent chapter of Burma’s history, millions more are now experiencing the fear and the exile his parents faced. Yawnghwe does not purport to take us back, he merely asks us to observe the present echoing the past: The undefined and often enigmatic figures of these paintings symbolize the not just the temporal decay of the photographs from which they are based, but also that of tradition, nation, and the gains of the present generation.

The title of this exhibition takes as its inspiration a recent book, The White Umbrella about the artist’s grandmother. Traditionally, a white umbrella was held over the heads of members of the Shan royal family, of which Yawnghwe is a descendent. (read more via shorturl.at/sCDMX)