Soe Yu Nwe

(b. 1989, Myanmar)

Soe Yu Nwe is an artist whose sculptural practice draws on Burmese folklore, Buddhist traditions, animistic beliefs and vernacular visual culture. Her works frequently combine human and organic forms, creating figures that blur the boundaries between the body, plants and mythical beings. Through these transformations, she explores the ways identity is formed through cultural inheritance, personal memory, and the overlapping belief systems that inform everyday life.

Drawing on her ethnic Chinese heritage and upbringing in Myanmar, Nwe approaches identity as something complex and continually evolving. Mythological figures, including the serpent goddess and Guanyin, recur throughout her work as vehicles for examining femininity, gender, and the negotiation of cultural expectations. Her work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Leeum Museum of Art in South Korea, the Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art in Australia and the National Gallery of Indonesia. In 2019, she was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list for Art & Style and in 2023 she received the inaugural Advocacy for the Arts Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation and CARE USA.