Aung Myint

Aung Myint's paintings, installation art and performance art have a broad range of unique styles. Although he is interested in the work of artists such as Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock, he refuses to categorize his work in terms of "isms". His work includes both representational and abstract images. In the mid-1960s his work was semi-abstract, with cubist elements. This evolved through a period in the 1970s and 1980s when he "fragmented" his images, and then into a highly emotional style in the 1990s with splashing, smearing and dripping of paint in strokes, which strongly evoked the works of Jackson Pollock's "action paintings" but also derived its inspiration from the circle and swirls of the Myanmar alphabet. Other painters of the American New York School of the post-war period, such as de Kooning, have influenced his work where in harrowing portraits the features of faces are tortured and twisted. But Aung Myint also reaches back into Burmese painting history for inspiration. In an unusual and provocative piece done in 2001 entitled Five Continents, he filled the bottom of the painting with images of Edvard Munch's "scream faces", in rows, as effigies of the Buddha might appear on the walls of Bagan temples. The upper portion of the painting was divided into five panels dripping in violent red paint."

Aung Myint (Burmese: အောင်မြင့်, pronounced [ʔàʊɰ̃ mjɪ̰ɰ̃]; born 27 October 1946) is a Burmese painter and performance artist. He is considered a pioneer in experimental art, rejecting traditional romanticism and confronting social and critical issues through a range of distinctive styles and media.

Aung Myint was born on 27 October 1946, and attended the Rangoon Arts and Science University, graduating in 1968 with a major in Psychology. A self-taught painter, Aung Myint began to exhibit his work in the 1960s. He became a leading figure in Yangon's contemporary art scene. Aung Myint co-founded The Inya Gallery of Art. In 1995, he made his first stage performance with the work Beginning n End. Aung Myint had his first solo exhibition in his Inya Gallery of Art in 1994, and since then has held many more in Yangon. He has also had solo exhibitions in Tokyo, Germany, Singapore and New York City. He co-authored the book Myanmar Contemporary Art 1 with Aung Min.