Untitled Document

Over a span of thirty years, Kyee Myintt Saw’s subject matter has changed, but his distinctive visual language has remained constant. One element of this language is his devotion to representation of light. He has been quoted as saying, “light, both natural and artificial, and the resulting shadows are the things that constantly inspire my imagination; light is my true subject.”

This is not surprising in an artist who has long taken Cézanne as his artistic mentor. Knowing that Kyee Myintt Saw was a mathematician by profession for many years allows us to understand another key element of his work: a Cézanne-like devotion to a rigorously organized pictorial space in flat planes of color.

In his early market scenes, with an abundance of subjects within the frame, what always sets these images apart from a routine representational tableau, is his insistence that each element stay close to the surface of the painting, whether it be in foreground or background. As a result, the final construction gives the appearance of a dynamically colorful abstract painting.

In his most recent series on nudes, Kyee Myintt Saw continues his signature style by mirroring the manner of the American painter of the contemporary realist school, Philip Pearlstein. It has been noted that Pearlstein paints the nude in a spirit of detached observation, devoid of the voyeurism associated with nudes painted solely for visual consumption.

Kyee Myintt Saw took his cue from Pearlstein, because this painter’s work utilized the pictorial language that had always been Kyee Myintt Saw’s as well: pictorial flatness, a sense of detachment yet with keen observation and, most of all, strongly defined color planes.

In Nude.2, Kyee Myintt Saw has created a remarkable work combining the style of Pearlstein enriched with the rigor of Cézanne. Notice how the strong light, coming from a source outside the pictorial space, creates bold, clearly defined diagonal planes across the surface. Among the six nudes that Kyee Myintt Saw executed in this series, Nude.2 is the most extraordinary in its formal arrangement of elements to create the Pearlstein-sense of detached observation within a formal pictorial space. The bright white of the sheet contrasts sharply with the dark blue of the shadow in lower right. Shadows echo in the upper part of the painting, framing the luminous white sheet. The nude in the center functions to break the strong light/shadow contrast and to introduce an additional band of color. The creation of a strong single light source has been a trademark of Kyee Myintt Saw’s since his Yangon Night series, highly influenced by the American painter, Edward Hopper.

The harmony of the overall arrangement is exceptional, with each pictorial element having equal value Even so, the eye is drawn to the delightful homage to Cézanne – the apple as a poignant reminder of still life painted a century ago that changed the course of western art forever.