Bart Was Not Here is a Burmese artist in exile based in New York. Bart’s mediums span from working with large scale canvases to figurines, sculptural installations, illustrations, and still expanding. He explores his art practice through world-building, characters, and fiction in a visual language that stemmed from curiosity and escapism – which were his ultimate tools to explore the outside world growing up in an isolated country of Burma. His cinematic compositions and gallows humor can be fully appreciated alongside a riddled commentary on witnessing the past, present, and future unfold simultaneously. Bart’s paintings and sculpture works deal with the themes of voyage, worship, violence, agency, and migration.

Growing up in Burma, an authoritarian country, Bart was frustrated by a corrupted school system, a strict religion, and the inability to assimilate into the conservative Burmese culture. Access to global art and culture through dial-up internet, international films, novels, and magazines found in Burmese bootleg markets provided him a lens to the alternative outside world. Since acquainting with graffiti at 13 years old, he started practicing under the moniker “Bart Was Not Here” to conceal his identity under the regime. Bart graduated from Lasalle College of the Arts Singapore as a Fine Arts major in 2018. He has participated in numerous exhibitions in New York, Paris, London, Sydney, Oslo, Singapore, Hong Kong, as well as his home country, Myanmar.

In 2021, he had to leave his home country due to his involvement in the resistance against the military coup d’état. He was also an artist-in-residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France for 2021-2022 and at Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts in New York for 2023.