So I went to many art galleries/exhibitions, by chance and by luck, I dunno why but I stumbled upon a lot of them 2 weeks ago.

1) Yangon Gallery

I'm pretty happy I stumbled into this one because they'll be having a series of exhibitions over the next few months. So they're constantly changing the paintings and art that's exhibited. I had a good first impression of this place. I like wide spaces where I get to roam around at my own leisure and stare at paintings at my own pace. 

Yangon Gallery is situated at People's Park in Yangon and I was just chilling and walking around exploring places when I wanted to kaypo and look through the closed windows coz "Yangon Gallery" sounded fancy. Then a man suddenly opened the door and I WAS EXCITED!!! I guess the thought that wow, I didn't expect to enter this place and the doors opened for me~ whoooo exciting.

Here's my favourite painting~

Can't really see from the details from here, but I loved the textures and colours, I love it!

A lady wanted to buy it but it was sold a while ago. Too bad. So I took a picture to remember it and the feels it gave me.

Btw, it's a painting of a Burmese lady of the Kachin race. 

Definitely coming back to Yangon Gallery in the coming weeks. Maybe bring my parents over as well. Yes!! They're coming to visit me this month ; ) Prolly coz they miss me too much lol.

2) Pansodan Gallery

This is a famous art gallery in Yangon and everyone knows about it. So of course I had to visit it.

On Tuesdays, they're open to public at 7:30pm onwards for people to hang around and chat with free beer and some finger food.

So one night I decided to walk all the way there. I went in alone and the owner's brother shuffled me in and introduced me to his nephew who was 18 years old. Showed me around the place. 

There were a few angmohs sitting and chatting. Just when I was about to leave the gallery, coz I was feeling awkward, a Brit came up to me and asked me to join them. Ok lah, I'll talk to them lah.

We talked about a lot of things and it was pretty cool. I really like how angmohs think sometimes, like how coming over to Myanmar was a no-brainer for them, while I always wondered if I made the right choice. Have I learnt anything? I asked him if he ever regretted coming over and he told me, "You know how certain occupations, say an architect, have specific things to study and learn? There are very nitty gritty specific stuff that they have to master. But for occupations such as a sociologist, lessons are intangible. We learn from the intangibles." That to me, was quite an eye-opener. So I see myself learning from experiences, and what I think about the world. Different people learn different things in different ways.

Another dude who was Finnish shared with me a lot of insights about the ruling government and political stuff coz he works as an anthropologist and works with the ethnic minorities here. There is so much dirty business going on in Myanmar and it was really interesting stuff. Shared with me articles to read and I quite like to read about politics. 

I initially wanted to leave at 9pm but ended up staying till 11:30pm bahahaha. Good stuff.

Though this gallery has a chill ambience and kinda hipsterish, I didn't really like the paintings that were available there though. I wouldn't go back there for the paintings haw haw. I wasn't inspired by any of them there. Whereas when I was at Yangon Gallery, there were a few personal favourites that I really liked. Here, none :S

I'd say it's more of the conversations shared amongst the people that's cool here. Didn't expect Myanmar to have these kinda places.

3) Gallery 65 - Monsoon Melodies Exhibition

This one was a small exhibition. 3 rooms with each room showcasing an artist's work.

Not many people visited it coz I signed the guest list and only 3 people came by that day and they were all foreigners. One Taiwanese, the other UK.

I stumbled on to it when I was walking back from ParkRoyal Hotel. I think I felt shitty that day but coming here and seeing the works was quite nice. And a good place to seek shelter from the rain haha.

These few paintings stood out to me and they were by the same artist:

I felt something stir within me and that's always a good sign ; )

I like colours too and the way the artist blended them together was... really.. nice. Haha I'm sorry my vocabulary failed me. 

I like textures, as well as the colours and how artists blend them together. I am always amazed by how painters can conceptualise what they want to paint in their heads.

4) Goethe Institut Yangon

Here's May Hlar!

I was introduced to my colleague's friends and she is one talented girl!

I thought this was a beautiful water colour painting! 

She did a few others but I didn't take no photos of them.

Hand painting~~

So yeah it was an exhibition of Final Year University students' art work and what a privilege it was for me to have the chance to view them.

Didn't take a photo of the school or the place but it's a much smaller compound compared to Universities in Singapore. Standards are different as well, coz I went to a science exhibition by junior students and the displays were unimpressive.. It made me think about how education standards are truly so vastly different. I read about articles on the quality of education in Myanmar, but to actually experience it myself, yeah that's a whole different dimension. For example, scientific concepts like evaporation and condensation were in that exhibition. They were things that us Singaporean students learnt in primary school... So it was really quite shocking to know that at University level, this was the standard. And I couldn't help but feel kinda sad, yet I reminded myself that it should not be a pity party. 

There ya go, arty farty me exploring arty farty places ; )

Artsy stuff in Myanmar. I like how their art is also very localised and has a lot of local flavour in them. And through these paintings by Burmese artists, it appears to me that they're proud of their culture. So it makes me want to check out what art in SG is like. How our city-state is portrayed in art. Very telling of what people think about their nation. Plus our country is so modern - what is our culture?