Chaw Ei Thein was born in Rangoon in 1969 and graduated from Rangoon University with a Bachelor of Law degree in 1994. She has received artistic recognition from an early age through the numerous international art awards that she received. With her father, Maung Maung Thein, as her art teacher and mentor, Chaw has developed a diverse art practice.
Highly regarded as a painter and a conceptual as well as a performance artist, her international career is highly profiled as she candidly portrays the contradictions and conflictions of her socio-political environment. Her feminist approach to her art is both gracious and candid and has earned her accolades and recognition as one of the most important contemporary artists to emerge from Burma. The recipient of the Elizabeth J McCormack and Jerome I Aaron fellowship in connection with the Asian Cultural Council in New York, she has lectured and exhibited extensively in and outside of Burma. Her numerous and notable achievements include participation in the 2008 Singapore Biennial, the 2009 Open Studios Exhibitions, International Studio and Curators Program in New York as well as several performance works together with Htein Lin in Burma and at Asia House, London in 2007. Chaw Ei Thein currently lives and works in New York.
