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Migrant artist shares his earnings with the refugees who people his canvases...
"Suffering from depression and weighed down by the hardships of life in Burma, Maung Maung Tinn finally decided to leave his home town, Moulmein, capital of Mon State. That was in 1994.
“I felt I had no future there, so I left my home,” the soft-spoken painter said. The child of a Shan father and Karen mother, Maung Maung Tinn felt hopelessness at not being able to help his parents and grandparents. They were helping to pay for his studies at Moulmein University, while he did his best to lighten the load on them by working as a clerk in a government-owned electricity plant.
Like many other Burmese, he made for Mae Sot, in Thailand, where he rapidly found employment at Dr Cynthia Maung’s Clinic, working at first as a chef, preparing meals for patients and medical staff, and then becoming a trained medic and health worker in the clinic’s outpatient department.
His real talent surfaced, however, during his free time—hours he spent drawing and painting. He had shown promise at school, inspired by such famous Burmese artists as Wa Thone and Myo Myint...
