| Nge Lay has a BA in Fine Art Painting from the National University of Art and Culture, in Yangon, Myanmar. Her first solo show was The Relationship between the Great Nothing, Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo, Japan, 2011 and she has participated in numerous group shows including: F.I.V.E, Dagaung Art Gallery, Yangon, 2011; Idols and Icons: New Photography from Southeast Asia and the Middle East, Yavuz Fine Art Gallery, Singapore, 2011; Angasana: Contemporary Southeast Asian Photography Takes Flight, 2902 Gallery, Singapore, 2011; The International ORANGE Photo Festival, Changsha, China, 2010; On/Off Myanmar Contemporary Art Event, The Almaz Collective Art Studio, Hanoi, Vietnam, 2010; Making History: How Southeast Asian Art Reconquers the Past to Conjure the Future, Jendela Gallery, Singapore, 2010; HISTORY, Alliance Francaise, Yangon, 2009; Magnetic Power: ASEAN-Korea Contemporary Photography, Seoul, Korea, 2009; Transportasian, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore, 2009; 2nd THUYE`DA VILLAGE ART PROJECT. Thuye`dan Village,Pyay, Myanmar, 2009; and Beyond Pressure Performance Festival, Yangon 2008.
She was recently a finalist of the 2011 Sovereign Art Prize.
Exhibition Note:
Oberserving of Self Being Dead is a highly emotional body of worked that links the artist’s personal histories with that of her country, Myanmar. Nge Lay has experienced numerous traumas such as the loss of friends and family due the activity of the country’s military leadership. In addition, due to strict censorship, little information is available internally on what is happening in the country, and any images taken from the Internet must be deleted immediately for fear of persecution. Such a stressful environment has led the artist down dark paths, that consider death as a liberation from such difficulties.
The two works in the exhibition taken from a larger group of photographs represents her understanding of death through acts of remembrance and silent protest, as well personal point of contemplation. By casting herself as the dead woman across numerous sites on the West Bank of the Arawaddy River (a native area of her husband and where organisations make weapons in secret), she represents the loss of female life all over Myanmar from political conflict. By inserting herself into the works, she embarks on a personal form of therapy to consider life, death and the realities of Myanmar, where the only witness, in this case, is the landscape itself.
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