Chan Aye was born in 1954 in Mandalay. He is a self-taught artist and got influenced by Bagyi Aung Soe, U Paw Oo Thett, U than Aung (Sculptor). He is a prominent artist and has been working as illustrator, painter, and sculptor and installation artist. He also writes articles on arts. He had taken the leading of modern exhibition called Rectangular Lantern, Early Myanmar Modern Art Shows in country wide since 1985. He started making holes on canvas in 2004 which is a Buddhist metaphor for piercing the inner being or inner self. He did artist residency in Vietnam in 2009 and had a talk at Artino Gallery in Vietnam about this concept of making hole and how it relates to Myanmar Culture and Religion. He also did a solo project on sculpture installation and exhibited at Palais de Tokyo Museum in Paris from Dec 2014 to to June 2015.

He was awarded at Philip Morris Group of Companies Myanmar Art Awards 2001/2002 and the 2004 Sovereign Annual Contemporary Asia Art Prize. His work has been shown in more than 40 exhibits locally and in more than 20 exhibits internationally in Singapore, Germany, Finland, France, Hong Kong, India, Thailand, China, USA (New York) and UK (London).France, Korea and Japan. His collection can be seen at Nawaday Tharlar Gallery in Yangon.