Belonging(s) by Millie Suu Kyi

About

Millie Suu Kyi is London-based multi-disciplinary artist, and winner of The Biscuit Factory's Contemporary Young Artist Award 2020.

Millie’s exhibition is a narrative that has woven throughout her work since she left her family home to gain her degree in Decorative Arts. Her prize-winning submission ‘If the Shoe Fits’ in 2019 was a commentary at the time of life as a modern Brit, and the influence of brands on everyday lives. Millie explains: “When I moved to university, I began to notice a few prominent styles of people... At the time, I was getting increasingly frustrated by people’s obsession with branding and consumerism, as every day I was becoming more informed and concerned about the environment and the awful toll human consumerism was having on it.”

Millie’s new exhibition continues this theme, albeit with a slightly different perspective of how individuals interact with, and use their possessions as representations or extensions of their own personalities. “I have always been interested in the possessions people choose to own, identify with and what they hope to convey through them” says Millie, “I wanted to explore this further by developing my own characters and narratives”.

Belonging(s) comprises five characters - all imagined but inspired by people she has
previously encountered or observed - formed in ceramic busts these individuals are created simply to exist in themselves. Millie explains: “Unlike previous projects where each character represented something different, these characters are meant to simply exist, but with each of them conveying a relatable thought, feeling or experience”.

Alongside her ceramic sculptures Millie’s collection also includes a series of illustrated prints relating to each character, designed to offer some further context to each individual, and drawing on her practice of working across both 2D and 3D disciplines. Speaking of her approach Millie says: “I enjoyed creating an illustration to establish a context for my ceramic pieces, and therefore generating a sense of cohesion between the 2D and 3D art worlds which I inhabit.”

Speaking of Millie’s work, curator Sam Waters explains why she succeeded in winning the
2020 Contemporary Young Artist Award: “We were won over by the spirit and moxie of
Millie's work. It's heartening, satisfying - and uncommon - to see a young artist have the
visual and emotional dexterity to be able to handle serious ideas with a lightness of touch and well-judged wit. She navigates with great levity the complicated and sometimes competing or contradictory dynamics of socially-engaged art - being humorous, but not flippant; sincere but not earnest; warm but not sentimental; and critical but not unkind. Her work is coherent and straightforward, full of subtleties and complexities, and her strength of conviction and personality as an artist shine through it”.