Penny Moe: A Survivor’s Story – My Art is My Voice

My name is Penny, and my life has been shaped by the suffocating weight of silence and the liberating power of creation. I grew up in Myanmar, a country of breathtaking culture and beauty, but also one deeply scarred by conflict and systemic oppression. These dualities—beauty and pain, resilience and suffering—have followed me, defining both my life and my art.

In late 2022, I made the heart-wrenching decision to leave Myanmar. I carried almost nothing with me but a stack of passport photos. A friend had advised me, “You’ll need them for visas—it’s expensive to get them abroad.” At the time, they felt like mundane pieces of paper, just another detail in the chaos of fleeing. But now, these images have become something far more symbolic. They represent all I left behind—my home, my community, and the fragments of myself tied to a land where survival often feels like resistance.

In my art, those photos reappear, layered and reconstructed, much like my memories. Scattered across canvases, they reflect the fragmented nature of my identity, a mosaic of grief, strength, and the unbreakable threads of belonging to a place I may never truly leave behind.

My journey as an artist is inseparable from my story as a survivor—of both political displacement and domestic abuse.

My work dives into the layers of childhood trauma, particularly the violence inflicted by my mother. She used to hit me, often on the side of my head. Her anger, born of a cycle of suffering she herself endured, left me with more than physical scars.

It left me grappling with questions I’ve spent years trying to answer: Why? How do you make peace with pain inflicted by the person who gave you life?

Therapy has been a constant in my attempt to navigate these questions. Forgiveness still eludes me, but I’ve begun to find acceptance—not of what happened, but of the complexity of survival and healing. My art is where this struggle lives, a space where I can turn pain into something tangible, raw, and, ultimately, transformative.

My mother used to hit me – to the side of my head, created in early 2024, is a deeply personal exploration of this pain. Using watercolour and pen, accompanied by handwritten text, I delve into the wounds of my past. The artwork is more than a reflection of abuse—it is a step toward healing, a testament to the power of creation to hold what words cannot.

Through sustainable practices and mindful creativity, I aim not just to tell my story, but to spark conversations about the lasting impacts of violence—both political and personal. My art is my voice, speaking to the resilience of those who refuse to be silenced, and a reminder that survival, no matter how messy, is still something to be celebrated. Here is a portrait series incorporating text that captures the words my mother shared with me as I grew up.

Here is a portrait series featuring words that my mother told me whilst growing up.