The artist who has been commissioned to produce a live painting on-site at the Web In Travel conference in Singapore next week is one of Myanmar’s top contemporary talent, NCS (Nyein Chan Su).
NCS will be on-site at the conference on October 22 to collaborate with delegates to produce an art piece that will reflect the theme “The Asia Factor”.
The live painting will be auctioned off the following night at the closing party, hosted by Dorsett Hospitality International, and proceeds (after costs) from the auction which will include other donated items will go towards WIT’s social enterprise of 2013, the Phare Foundation.
The Phare Foundation is a Cambodia-based social enterprise that takes in children at risk and teaches them performing arts such as music, drama and dance. The not-for-profit enterprise runs nightly Phare Cambodian Circus performances in Battambang and Siem Reap as part of their activities to run the organisation’s activities. A team of performers from Phare will be attending WIT.
As part of its “Art For Good” programme, WIT’s been raising funds for underprivileged children in Asia by commissioning well-known painters in the region to produce “live” works in tandem with its themes each year, and pieces are auctioned off at the event. Last year, together with Brand Karma, it raised S$35,000 for the Island Foundation, which aims to raise IT and English literacy among children in Indonesia’s Riau province.
Said Heena Patel, director of Island Foundation, “In the past year, we were able to use the generous funds from WIT to further and expand on our projects. The Education Program encompassed continued teacher training workshops to empower local school teachers as well as our learning center staff to deliver better standards of learning.
“Our youth football program evolved into the Football Academy of Bintan, with 6 village teams of children ages 14 under. There are 4 more villages on the waitlist to join the Academy. Kura Kura continued to be developed with new products and concepts being introduced.
“With the Gone Fishing program, we conducted several pilot trips with the Orang Laut into the mangroves as well as brought over a marine biologist to help teach them how to map the mangrove and its species.
“And lastly, we’ve begun to lay the groundwork for our Health & Nutrition program through conducting Red Cross First Aid training courses as well as cooking exchanges where new healthy ideas and nutrition information is exchanged.”
Thus far, WIT, together with its delegates, has raised close to S$100,000 for children in Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Japan and Indonesia in the last five years.
NCS’ appearance at WIT will mark the opening of his “Trailblazing” exhibition in Singapore, curated by Asian Palette, a Singapore-based art curator has been staging exhibitions to showcase Myanmar’s leading artists.
“NCS: Trailblazing!” will showcase more than 30 works including his early works whilst at the State School of Fine Arts and the trail he blazed from there.
This first retrospective exhibition of NCS (Nyein Chan Su) will make its debut at the WIT Conference, followed by a three-day exhibit at Millenia Walk October 24-26. The exhibition at Sahib at Tanglin Mall will run from Oct 24-Nov 10.
NCS works (pictured) have always been bold, vibrant, open and full of possibilities. 
Says Fiona Rankine, owner of Asian Palette, “I have been following the work of NCS over the years. I remember him proudly working on ‘The Elephant and Six Blind Men’ when Aung San Suu Kyi was released in 2010, full of the same confidence, humour and triumph that Andrew Ranard describes this third wave of young modernist painters in the late 1990s.
“I gave NCS a nickname, Leader Cow. That is how I see him, a trailblazer, if you like. His works stand out, bold, audacious and different amongst many paintings of monks and landscapes.”
