Artist Aye Ko
Date of birth : 7 august 1963
Place of birth : Pathein, Myanmar
Nationality : Myanmar
Aye Ko was born in Pathein in 1963. After 1988, he entered into Yangon art society. He is one of the postmodern art generations in Myanmar. In 1990, he organized “Modern Art 90” art exhibition and participated in that. Impressionist paintings were his early art works. Through a contact with Yangon based Modern artists such as Maung D and Aung Myint, he also started working with abstraction. In 1994, he founded “Olive” gallery. After 1996, as his interest changed to postmodern ideas, he practiced performance art. In 1999, he participated in second Asia Topia International Performance Art Festival in Bangkok, Thailand. Afterwards, he subsequently made performance art works in Hong Kong, Macau, Cambodia, Germany, Philippines, Vietnam, France, Indonesia, Japan and New York which made him recognized internationally as a Myanmar performance Artist. After 2000, he has practiced multimedia art and new art, and involved in the activities of “New Zero Art Group”, which is transformed from “Modern art 90”in the leading role. In 2001, he made a performance work at Asian Performance Art Festival in New York, the greatest art festival among his art exhibitions. In 2005, Asian Cultural Council awarded him the 3-month art residency in New York. Moreover, ACC granted him to study art galleries in Indonesia and China. After his gallery visits in Indonesia in 2007, he decided to establish an art space as he realized that artists have to unite in order to go to international art world. Therefore, he established New Zero Art Space in 2008 to promote young generation and Myanmar contemporary art. He has already participated in over 70 foreign group exhibitions from 1999 to 2009. Besides these, he participated in over 80 local group shows in Myanmar. He made his solo shows in New York, France, Thailand, USA and Hong Kong. His sixth solo show was at the Lokanat gallery in Yangon, Myanmar. As the director of New Zero Art Space, he is leading the Myanmar contemporary art movements such as international exchange programs and artist in residency program. He was nominated for Art Stage Singapore and US Embassy Singapore Joseph Balestier Award for the Freedom of Art in 2015 and 2016. In 2017, he was awarded Art Stage Singapore and US Embassy Singapore Joseph Balestier Award for Freedom of Art. He is an art critic and a writer as well. According to his admiration in reading, he founded media groups, which have been publishing two monthly magazines, “Fashion”, fashion and beauty magazine and “Hlaing Thit”, art and literature magazine. In 2008, he directed a VCD. His art works are collected in New York the Rockefeller Family, USA, ZKM museum of contemporary art Karlsruhe, Germany, Italy, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Belgium, Korea, Thailand, Spain, France, Taiwan, Switzerland and in Myanmar.
