| Myint Swe was persuaded to
leave the office beautifully and as a result, he became a
freelancer; self-made, dynamic and creative artist with
multiple approaches. In addition, he got experiences with
printing and chemicals from parental industry. It pushed
him into a new technique of painting, which some
conventional and stiff-necked artists and people do not
accept. Perhaps it is based on the concept that an artist
must have one and only one style of painting or
"ism". Should Myint Swe go one way or follow
multiple lines? It is his birth right to walk his own
path. Let's coin a word, "polymedianism". It is
akin to variety. By bold and timid strokes, he might
raise towards the grand old impressionists whom he
admires; Renoir, Van Gogh, Monet, Boudin, Pissaro and
Sisley. Should he ignore Paul Signac’s La Beau
Rouge? Have a heart! Sale is sale, reputation is
reputation and fame is fame. Can't he use the powerful
and influential strokes and colour-mingle styles of U
Ngwe Gaing, U Lun Gwe, U Kyi, S Tin Shwe, Paw Oo Thet and
Bagyi Maung Ngwe Htoon? He almost always thinks, feels
and reads people's lives as comedies and tragedies, which
push him to become a philosopher.
Myint Swe is good at
depicting realism, skilful in the style of expressionism,
and creative in modern styles. He presented the Modern
City Art exhibition on 12 – 20 September 1998 at
the well-known Lokanat Gallery in Yangon. He staged 122
paintings, and it jolted Yangon artists for its daring
and sensitive show. Myint Swe also writes short-stories
about his beloved paintings. Notes for the
above-mentioned show were written in French -- the only
show of its kind in Myanmar. The exhibition was launched
with French modern songs, and many art-lovers visited and
appreciated the show.
At present, Myint Swe has painted oils for Yamada
Hotel, diplomats, aliens, company bosses, UN officials,
foreigners, galleries, art dealers and many from the
elite. For my own part, he is a painter with grand
paintings composed of many colours, huge canvases, big
teak and golden sprayed frames. He is a middle-sized man,
but his paintings are majestic in a sense. Titles such as The world upside-down, Cock fighting, The lady's hair
hanging loose, Might and right and Mist in the
rain have double meanings and show the complicated
fabric of human beings and an entangled society. When
scrutinised and studied in detail, his display of
emotions and feelings is a mixture of facts and feelings.
His basic concepts and strokes reflect the foot-prints
of his grand masters but he has also proved his own way.
His concepts are based on maturity and creativity, on
Western and European styles as well as schools which are
not limited to a certain locality, but international in
scope. Art has no boundaries as it marches through
countries at a lightning speed.
Myint Swe is a person who never says die. He paints
with a loving kindness to transform pictures into rubies.
It may happen in the near future that he will set the
Thames on fire in order to get adequate light for beams
to shine on his lovely paintings.
May he paint for the rest of his life.
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