Burmese Artists Look to New Horizons

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Ceil Miller Bouchet (Travel)

The artist Aung Myint, at his home adjacent to his Inya Gallery.

BURMA - “OH, please let me go to heaven!” The artist Aung Myint, at his home adjacent to his Inya Gallery. Kyee Myintt Saw, a Burmese artist, was joking as we chatted in his sweltering studio on the ground floor of a laundry-festooned apartment building in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. But for many in this traditional Buddhist society, his plea would not be funny. Although Mr. Saw’s impressionistic oils of market scenes sell like hotcakes in a local gallery, his passion is painting the human body. Nude. “Our Buddhist culture cannot accept nudes,” said Mr. Saw, a 72-year-old former math teacher, perched on an armchair under his lushly layered oil of a naked beauty. [link]