A third-generation Chinese native of Myanmar, artist Soe Yu Nwe has explored the mythical serpent Naga found in Asian religious culture, making sculptural iterations in different forms and materials.

Naga Maedaw is an apotheosis of Mya Nan Nwe, an actual person and devout Buddhist born in 1897 in the Burmese town of Mogok under British occupation. General Than Shwe, the supreme leader of Myanmar's military regime between 1992 and 2011, ordered handcuffs to be placed on a statue of the naga queen, which he claimed entered his dreams every night to torment him. Having discovered inexhaustible possibilities in the story of a mortal being who was mythologized, the artist presents forms that combine human characteristics with those of plants and animals. The human-serpent hybrid in Naga Maedaw also evokes parallels with Nüwa, the mother goddess figure in Chinese mythology who is said to have created human beings. As the artist's practice delves into faiths and cultures that operate across national borders, this work in particular was created in Shigaraki, a region of Japan with a long tradition of ceramic.