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Sawangwongse Yawnghwe

Myanmar

The Opium Parallax, 2019
Footnotes, 2019

The Opium Parallax and Footnotes are two related works by Sawangwongse Yawnghwe, which register the history and conditions surrounding opium trade and use in the region from the artist’s perspective. Presented in the format of an installation, The Opium Parallax is installed suspended so that it can be regarded from both sides, thereby conveying the idea of the parallax. Behind the matrix on one side of the artwork is an abstracted form that emerges from oil paint bleed-through, which Yawnghwe considers a “skeleton key”—a representation of a simplified and limited perception of the opium-heroin trade. Surrounding The Opium Parallax is Footnotes, a series of paintings depicting scenes from Yawnghwe’s personal history and references to the narcotics trade. Together, both works provide a glimpse into the complex web of relations that exists around the consumption and trade of opium in Myanmar and that extends to the region of Southeast Asia and beyond.

BIO
Sawangwongse Yawnghwe (b. 1971) is a descendant of the Shan royal family; his grandfather was Sao Shwe Thaik, who was the first president of the Union of Burma (1948–1962) following independence from Britain, as well as the last hereditary Saopha of the Shan principality of Yawnghwe (hence the family’s adopted last name). Sao Shwe Thaik died in prison following General Ne Win’s military coup of 1962, after which the remnants of his family fled to northern Thailand.

There, his widow and Yawnghwe’s father, Chao Tzang Yawnghwe, helped to form a resistance movement: the Shan State Army (SSA). As an artist who is interested in his origins, Yawnghwe’s practice takes on an autobiographical approach, but this personal perspective is also deeply connected to a larger national history. His aesthetic approach can be observed in two broad strands: pictorial representation drawn from photographic reference (often from his own family’s archives) and an abstracted, almost-clinical mapping of complex webs of relation and activity.

INFORMATION

  • The Opium Parallax. 2019. Oil on linen, 224 x 400 cm.
  • Footnotes. 2019. Oil on linen, Dimensions variable (suite of 23 paintings).