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IMPRESSIONS

AND

EXPRESSIONS
Vietnamese Contemporary Painting
Shireen Naziree Phan Cam Thuong

IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

Published by Thavibu Gallery Co. Ltd. Silom Galleria, Suite 308 919/1 Silom Road, Bangkok 10500, Thailand Tel. (662) 266 5454, Fax. (662) 266 5455 Email. info@thavibu.com, www.thavibu.com Translations from Vietnamese by The Hung Language Editor, James Pruess Photography by Camera Collection and Songgot Kondee, Thailand; Witness Collection (p. 8) and Duc Minh Collection (p. 13), Vietnam; and the National Art Gallery, Malaysia (p. 11, 12) Layout by Wanee Tipchindachaikul, Copydesk, Thailand Printed by Amarin Printing and Publishing Public Company Limited, Thailand Copyright Thavibu Gallery 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. ISBN-13: 978-974-94336-8-3 ISBN-10: 974-94336-8-8
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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

Contents
IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - Vietnamese Contemporary Painting
Foreword Crossing Cultural Boundaries Mapping New Narratives Extending Horizons Vietnamese Lacquer Art 5 6 - 10 11 - 18 19 - 21 22 - 25

Artists Profiles Cong Kim Hoa Dang Xuan Hoa Dinh Quan Dinh Y Nhi Hong Viet Dung Le Quang Ha Luong Xuan Doan Nguyen Thanh Binh Nguyen Trung Pham An Hai Pham Luan Thanh Chuong Trinh Tuan Truong Tan Van Duong Thanh 26 - 29 30 - 33 34 - 37 38 - 41 42 - 45 46 - 49 50 - 53 54 - 57 58 - 61 62 - 65 66 - 69 70 - 73 74 - 77 78 - 81 82 - 85

Index

86 - 87

IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

Foreword
Jrn Middelborg Thavibu Gallery

This book is an introduction to contemporary Vietnamese painting. In the first part, the art historian and independent curator Shireen Naziree covers the background of contemporary Vietnamese painting and places it in the context of Southeast Asia. There is a section on how lacquer paintings are made, followed by profiles of fifteen prominent artists written by the Vietnamese art historian and critic Phan Cam Thuong. It is not an easy task to settle on what artists to include, as there are a large number of talented artists in Vietnam. The artists chosen for this book are well established artists who have developed their own particular styles. They range from 39 (Pham An Hai) to 66 years of age (Nguyen Trung). Many of the artists started their careers during the mid-1980s, and may thus be labeled the doi moi generation, after the Vietnamese term for renovation and the process of opening Vietnam to the outside world. Although there had been many talented artists of the older generation, the artists of the doi moi generation were the first to break free from more conventional painting styles. The challenge facing many Vietnamese artists today is to escape from established patterns and to experiment with new styles, media and ways of expression. Lacquer paintings have been given special attention in the book. The application of a traditional medium such as lacquer to contemporary art started in the 1920s when the French established the cole des Beaux-Arts dIndochine in Hanoi. Other countries produce lacquer ware, but only in Vietnam has the synthesis of traditional lacquer techniques and modern painting been successful. The art of lacquer painting is surely an important Vietnamese contribution to the global contemporary art scene. I would like to thank the art scholars Shireen Naziree and Phan Cam Thuong for giving us insights into the paintings and art of one of Southeast Asias main countries with a rich and varied history and culture. Thanks also go to Trinh Tuan and Bang Sy Truc for providing detailed descriptions of how lacquer paintings are made; to Adrian Jones for discussions and help with photos; to Bui Quoc Chi and the National Art Gallery, Malaysia for providing photos; and to all the artists who have been very accommodating in all aspects of producing this book.

IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

Crossing Cultural Boundaries

Nguyen Sang Painting, 1965 Bui Xuan Phai Pencil on paper 11.5 x 16 cm

expressions translated through practices of divine worship into a cultural and artistic language that remained assured of itself. It became a presence that continues to impose itself through the Buddhist and Taoist traditions, even through times and different realities that were deaf to the voices of artistic expression. As is typical in most oriental cultures, aesthetics and cultural values take on a contextual meaning; they interact with each other and become a very literal reflection of life. The origin of artistic visual expression in Vietnam, a hybrid like its Southeast Asian neighbours, can be traced back to its 2,500-yearold culture that started in the Neolithic Age and steadily developed until the end of the Iron Age when Chinese invaders entered from the north. By the second century BC, foreign influences started to infiltrate into the Dong Son civilization that is widely believed to have originated in Vietnam, and one of the lasting impacts was the introduction of Confucianism and the Chinese script. Culturally influenced by India, the Southeast Asian Hindu-Buddhist Kingdom of Champa, located in south central Vietnam, flourished from the second century AD until 1471, when its capital Vijaya, was conquered and its territories were finally annexed to Annam the ancient name of Vietnam. Thus, the cultural transpositions that occurred over the centuries resulted in architectural relics embellished with rich visual Simultaneously, during this era, most of Southeast Asia apart from Thailand was under Western colonial rule. While the interests of the British in Malaya were purely economic and protected the rights of the Malay rulers, the French like the earlier Spanish colonialists in the Philippines, a nation under Connected to this cultural aesthetic is the transposition of Western utopianism that resulted from Vietnams colonial past. In the Franco-Chinese war of 1884-1885, France forced China to cede her sovereignty over the northern Vietnamese areas of Annam and Tonkin and declared the region a French protectorate. The Indochinese Union, ultimately formed in 1887, included Cambodia, and in 1893 Laos was added. However, it was the three Vietnamese parts Annam, Tonkin and Cochin-China that formed the economic and political backbone of French Indochina, with Saigon as its administrative capital until 1902 when it was moved to Hanoi.

IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

US control, sought to assert their dominance on a larger and more forceful spectrum. The influence of the Dutch, who ruled Indonesia for 350 years, was limited to the upper levels of society that adopted Western culture mainly through education. The French language was widely used in Indochina, and a new Western-style education system gradually began to erode the ancient Confucian system of competitive examination, which was eventually abandoned. The new introduced culture was strongly influenced by French and European values, and was felt in every sphere of life from customs to spiritual beliefs. This Europeanization was most noticeable in the fast-growing urban centres such as Hanoi, Saigon, Hue, Haiphong and Danang. Towards the end of the nineteenth century during French Indochinas golden age of political and economic hegemony, Western modern art activity started to surface. This was mostly evident in the architecture of the period - historic landmarks such as the Opera House in Hanoi still reflect the cultural identity of the period. At the same time, the European painting disciplines were also being introduced. For the French traveler-painters and government bureaucrats who documented their work through illustrations and paintings, the Vietnamese cultural landscape was rich in beauty of form, colour and light providing enormous variety and endless fascination. At the same time, Vietnamese were being exposed to the European art traditions. Le Van Mien (1873-1943) was one of the first Vietnamese sent by the government of the protectorate to study painting in Paris. He painted in oils in the German classical style. His Commentary on a Literary Text is a genre painting in the Dutch fashion but the motifs used are indigenous to Vietnam.
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first art school had been established in Saigon in 1913, it would be overshadowed by the cole des Beaux-Arts dIndochine and the efforts of Victor Tardieu that were central to the identity of the art scene at the time. The French artist Victor Tardieu (1867-1937) arrived in Indochina in 1920, having been commissioned by the French colonial administration to paint two large-scale murals for the University of Indochina and the Central Library, both located in Hanoi. After completing these murals, Tardieu settled in Hanoi. It is said that it was his fascination with the intrinsic beauty of the land as well as the aesthetics and skills of the local craftsmen that motivated him to lobby the French colonial administration to establish an art academy to train an elite colonial corps of artists. With Victor Tardieu as the Academys first president, its early curriculum was based on the European painting and sculpturing disciplines. Traditional Vietnamese art forms such as lacquer painting and silk painting, together with architecture, were added later. For the conservative French administration, the prestige of establishing an art academy in Indochina not only anchored Frances position economically and culturally. More than producing skilled artists, the academy was also serving another purpose, providing exotic paintings for the colonial bourgeoisie as well as serving the interests of metropolitan France in Indochina.2 However, in spite of the optimism surrounding Tardieus efforts, the conservative attitude of the French was characterized by considerable reserve in regard to the talents of the Vietnamese. It was due to his genuine passion for Vietnam, his appreciation of the traditional arts and his camaraderie with local artists, together with his ability to maintain a consistent dialogue with his more insular French colonial colleagues, that the academy was able to thrive. Just as significant for the newly established art community was the establishment of the Vietnam Revolutionary Youth League by Ho Chi Minh with the assistance of other exiled nationalists in Guangzhou, China, in 1925 - the same year as the cole des Beaux Arts opened. The main goal of the movement was to liberate the stronghold of the colonial masters and establish independence from France. The movement and Ho Chi Minhs

By all scholarly accounts, this was an indication of the early steps toward a masterly synthesis of developments in Vietnamese contemporary painting. It was also during this period that French and European archeologists set out to study the history of Vietnam, most notably highlighted by their discovery of the Dong Son culture a culture richly embellished with art, the most notable being the famed bronze drums. One of the most influential, early guideposts in Vietnamese contemporary art was the establishment of the cole des BeauxArts dIndochine in Hanoi by Victor Tardieu in 1925. Although the

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Nguyen Quan (1993): The Avenues of Painting in Vietnam - Tradition and Change. Contemporary Art of Asia and the Pacific. Queensland Art Gallery, Australia. Nora A. Taylor (2004): Painters in Hanoi - An Ethnography of Vietnamese Art. University of Hawaii Press, USA.

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Taking Mail Out To The Battlefront, 1968 Nguyen Thanh Minh Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm Courtesy of Witness Collection

society. And within this explosion of creativity, Vietnamese artists responded to both traditional academic art concepts and the cultural initiatives of their own craft heritage. Artists started to blend formal European styles with Vietnamese sensibilities and experiences, giving rise to distinct forms of cultural expression and as a result redrawing the boundaries of fine art. In this manner, artists like Nguyen Phan Chanh efforts were strongly supported by Vietnamese intellectuals both in and outside of Vietnam. This rising nationalism served as a background for the start of a drive to reexamine traditional art while learning about modern Western art. It entailed a search by artists for identity as Vietnamese and efforts to find ways to use traditional Vietnamese silk painting and lacquer painting as idioms in modern art.
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(1892-1984) were among the first to paint on silk using new techniques and styles that were alien to the traditional silk paintings, which traditionally had been purely decorative. Other renowned artists found a correlation between modern art styles and the traditional art of lacquer painting, creating works that moved beyond the styles and hues of traditional lacquer ware. The art of wood-block printing was also revived within this newly realized framework. And the merits of this new humanism, which was strongly influenced by the European impressionist and post-impressionist masters, were largely attributed to the pioneering spirit of Victor Tardieu. Other progressive social movements, as practiced by the early twentieth century Vietnamese artists, supported these ideas concerning identity. These movements included several literary groups whose writings were positive contributions to the development of a uniquely Vietnamese cultural sensibility. While this new milieu stressed new avenues for the Vietnamese, the French influence on the other hand was prominent, expounding itself emphatically at all levels of Vietnamese society. As a result, there was a tendency to create a distance between traditional customs and the willingness to adopt Western ideals.

The evolution of the new Vietnamese aesthetic owes itself largely to the enduring spirit of the native Vietnamese artists. Apart from the few who had benefited from firsthand exposure to the fine arts in Paris, the larger artistic community in Hanoi acquired mastery through developed academic skills that were committed to European values of beauty as defined by the instructors at the cole des Beaux Arts. The result was that most of the very early artworks of this genre emphasized literal translations of the idyllic pastoral. For Vietnamese artists active during the early twentieth century, the positive representation of their own rich traditional arts inspired sensitive treatments of the Vietnamese identity. The question of identity became paramount and allowed artists to reassess their own cultural values as well as the cultural shifts within Vietnamese
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Toshiko Rawanchaikul (1997): Creation of a Tradition - The Birth of Modern Art in Southeast Asia: Artists and Movements - Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan.

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Amidst all the reflections on a new cultural identity during the early decades of the twentieth century, the development of the arts would be overlapped by the efforts of Ho Chi Minh to seek a new socio-political order for Vietnam. The ravaging of the worldwide rift that resulted from the outcome of the Second World War opened for Ho Chi Minh new avenues of hope for liberating his nation. In 1941, Ho Chi Minh returned to Annam (North Vietnam) from his exile in China for the first time in thirty years and organized the League for the Independence of Vietnam or Viet Minh. Although Ho Chi Minhs impact on Vietnams artist community would not truly manifest itself for a few years, the intense situation yielded passionate patriotism amongst many artists. In 1945, the power balance in Vietnam took a dramatic turn. The Japanese, who had at that point of time entered the country through China, disarmed the French forces in Annam. The turbulent historic events that followed included Japans surrender, as a result of the Allies victory in the war, to Ho Chi Minhs forces. This resulted in the Viet Minh announcing the formation of the provisional government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), with Ho Chi Minh as president. He would continue to fight the French who reinvaded the country in 1946. 1945 was also the year that the cole des Beaux Arts finally closed its doors. The end of the Japanese occupation in Southeast Asia resulted in a simultaneous adoption of nationalism throughout the region.

In the Dutch-controlled East Indies, the Republic of Indonesia declared independence and started a war against the Dutch forces. British-ruled Malaya, with the exception of Singapore, formed the Federation of Independent States in 1948 and started negotiations towards independence in 1957. The Philippines gained independence in 1948, although it continued to challenge the de facto American economic dominance. As a result of this shift in Southeast Asias political rhetoric, new cultural infrastructures were being established. These included the Art Association of the Philippines in 1948 and the Philippine Art Gallery in 1951, as well as the Nanyang Academy of Art in 1946 in Singapore. After the 1945 revolution, many of the most talented and prominent artists left Hanoi and joined the resistance forces of the Viet Minh while others moved to the south and re-established themselves within the Saigon art community. In this new climate of a politically engaged art community, a new art college was established in 1946 in the jungle of Viet Bac north of Hanoi. To Ngoc Van (1906-1954), the first director, was himself a noted artist who once lectured at the cole des Beaux-Arts. However, in his new role, in opposition to the sentimental pictures based on literary subjects, To Ngoc Van encouraged his students to observe life directly, in particular the ethnic minorities as well as the Viet Minh soldiers, and to render these subjects as simple, strong compositions. By adhering to this fundamental socialist philosophy, artists learned that their primary role was to serve the revolution. In effect, these artists were required to produce works shaped to a new identity defined by propaganda, thus sacrificing their own personal artistic identities and forms of expression along the way (see e.g. Taking Mail Out To The Battlefront by Nguyen Thanh Minh). While numerous artists willingly embraced the ideals spelt out to them, the restriction on any form of expressionism drove other artists to break loose from the Viet Minh and flee south. In 1955, the Vietnam College of Fine Arts opened in Hanoi at the original location that housed the earlier cole des Beaux-Arts. This was followed by the formation of the Vietnam Fine Arts Association in 1957. While the new college became the beacon

Hang Bac Street, ca 1974 Bui Xuan Phai Oil on paper 15 x 19 cm

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Tigers, 1988 Nguyen Tu Nghiem Gouache on paper 18 x 36 cm

Artists who did not align themselves with the decisions of the Arts Association were often isolated and not included in exhibitions and events that were solely organized by the Association. On the other hand, the Arts Association - an organization equated with party politics although never affiliated for art education in Vietnam, the role of the Arts Association was purely pragmatic. Under Ho Chi Minhs leadership, a major initiative was launched to link art to the political order so as to better connect with the masses. Although one of the primary objectives of the Arts Association was to promote equality amongst artists, differing views on the new direction of art resulted in opposing factions. Often referred to as The Four Pillars - artists Nguyen Tu Nghiem (b. 1922), Bui Xuan Phai (1920 - 1988), Nguyen Sang (1923 - 1988), three students of the last course held at the cole des Beaux-Arts together with Duong Bich Lien (1924 - 1988) were amongst the early artists who chose to look outward to the achievements and development of European art, while remaining close to their Vietnamese roots. Their common experiences of suffering and their shared desire to evoke a sense of truth through their art, nurtured distinct artistic identities that continue to resonate today. The sufferings they endured were reflections of all Vietnamese at the time. Nguyen Tu Nghiem drew his inspiration from the traditional dinh and pagoda sculptures. The lyricism of Bui Xuan Phais expressionist spirit became most representative through his scenes of Hanois streets. Duong Bich Lien continued to express himself in a classical tone. Nguyen Sang, nicknamed The artist patriot became known for his social-realist art. In this historical sense, through these four artists determination to distance themselves from official art and to continue their artistic practice with their personal views, the true spirit of Vietnamese art was kept alive.
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to the Communist Party gave artists who were deemed patriotic special con-siderations. Nevertheless, all members of the association were regarded as art workers and typically under the socialist system received a small wage - a policy that lasted until the early 1970s. Today, the Arts Association survives as a lasting record of Vietnams artistic legacy and with a current membership of more than seven hundred artists. It has developed a different outlook although it continues to support the efforts of artists in a very pragmatic fashion. In 1963, the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum opened under the Ministry of Culture. The core collection of works selected for acquisition documented the artistic activity as set out by the Arts Association. Most noteworthy in the history of the museum is its survival through the ravages of North Vietnams bloody war with America. The bombing of North Vietnam by the Americans in 1964 prompted an initiative by the museums management to duplicate all artworks and safely store the originals. Ironically, some of these duplicates still remain on display. Vietnam was finally unified in 1975. The heavy-handed political emphasis of Vietnams dramatic history left art in a sadly staid and impoverished state. Until 1980, Classicism and Impressionism were the only outside art styles that made their way into Vietnamese painting. Because of the influences of social realism from the Soviet Union and China, abstract art styles and anything else that could not be literally translated were deemed subversive. While artists in the south had enjoyed greater freedom of expression, they lacked a scholarly foundation.4

Luong Xuan Doan and Phan Cam Thuong (1996): Young Artists of Vietnam. Fine Arts Publishing House, Vietnam.

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Mapping New Narratives

the development of patronage and the creation of institutions dedicated to training young artists and to the exhibition and sale of art. In response to these changes, artists were free to paint images acceptable to a speculative market rather than to a commissioned one. Above all, they responded to the demands and investigated the possibilities of the Vietnamese social landscape, because it combined elements of national pride with the force of an unfolding Vietnamese history. Despite the many socio-economic issues that had to be addressed, the momentum with which Vietnams art scene was escalating, with its vigorous interpretations, assisted in changing the face of Vietnam - for it was her art that caught the attention of the international art world. By exploring the universal language of art with its strong spiritual dimensions, artists were able to symbolically borrow from their rich cultural past and give new meanings to their aesthetic experience. This new reality, which mingled the traditional
My Countryside, 2001 Ha Tri Hieu Oil on Canvas 190 x 190 cm Courtesy of National Art Gallery, Malaysia

It is a truism that the course of contemporary art runs parallel with social and economic change. The implementation of doi moi

Vietnamese values with modern life, increased its cognitive capacity, giving Vietnams contemporary art new points of comparison and departure. The success of Vietnam in making a place for itself in the world of international art leads directly to the relationship between contemporary art and material culture. An artistic collective called The Gang of Five, which emerged as a result of liberalization, attracted a great deal of attention during the closing years of the 1980s. Dang Xuan Hoa and Ha Tri Hieu, together with Pham Quang Vinh, Tran Luong and Hong Viet Dung, graduated from the Hanoi Industrial Fine Arts College in 1983. Starting with their landmark exhibition A Hundred Years of the Van Gogh Death at Gallery 7 Hang Khay (now known as the Red River Gallery) in Hanoi in September 1990, the group continued to exhibit at the Thanh Nien Art Gallery in December 1991. In 1996, they continued their success with shows in Vietnam and in Hong Kong. Although the collective no longer exists, all five artists left their mark on Vietnamese contemporary art.

(renovation) in 1986 brought with it a remarkable transformation of the socialist economy from rigid central planning to a market orientation. Doi moi also led to a marked alteration in Vietnams foreign policies that previously were mainly confined to the socialist bloc. The development of Vietnamese contemporary art since doi moi offers evidence that not so very long ago art in Vietnam had been restricted to socialist realism and poster art. The transition of Vietnamese art since 1986 has been a dramatic one that reflects the transformation of Vietnamese society resulting from the economic reforms of the new open door policy. For the countrys intellectuals this transformation was coupled with the desire to develop a national cultural heritage equal or even superior to that of Europe. For the visual arts, this meant

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The Gift of Asia, 1996 Nguyen Xuan Tiep Mixed Media 136 x 196 cm Courtesy of National Art Gallery, Malaysia

the gate to a better understanding of himself. Like Dang Xuan Hoa, the oeuvre of Ha Tri Hieu (b. 1959) lies deep within the Vietnamese soul. In Hieu brims that pastoral quality of a rural soul not yet urbanized1 typically describes his visual vocabulary. Hieus canvasses reduce his figures to modeled forms and layer these forms in distinct overlapping planes that make his art powerfully individual and too Dang Xuan Hoa (b. 1959) is one of Vietnams most internationally recognized midcareer artists. With works in numerous art museums and noted international collections, Dang Xuan Hoa responded early on in his career to the explosion of new opportunities and the cultural shifts of doi moi. His uniquely artistic sensibility is a sensitive rendering of the Vietnamese identity. Paramount to his paintings is an emphasis on the humanizing dignity of his Vietnamese heritage. His light-filled paintings, often with elements of domestic life and everyday objects, present the viewer with a unique opportunity to explore the rich complexity of the Vietnamese historical narrative. Though this domestic theme recurs in his paintings, Dang Xuan Hoa avoids treating his subject matter as purely picturesque or nostalgic. Instead, his random depictions of crockery, furniture and objects that are an integral part of Vietnamese households reveal the artists belief in the dignity and strength of the Vietnamese people. Through his self-portraits Dang Xuan Hoa portrays the new Vietnamese identity. Though he lived through the horrors of war, his paintings project personal expressions of his own gentle and dignified disposition devoid of the angst of his youth. For Dang Xuan Hoa, his portrayals of himself are reminiscent of those by the famous master artist, Bui Xuan Phai, where the integration of his art and social con-science appears to be the key to unlocking
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elusive to be categorized. This adept interpretation of the rural landscape of Vietnam makes use of the compositional elements of almost primitive shapes, as well as an eclectic use of colour. Although he paints in his studio within the urban environment of Hanoi, it is the rural scenery that serves as his iconographic anchor. Let your mind travel along the provincial routes west of the capital city, with gentle rivers and poor villages and renowned beauty spots - home places of Confucian luminaries and you will partly understand Ha Tri Hieus painting, wrote Nguyen Quan of the artists first solo exhibition at Hanois Red River Gallery in 1996. His symbolic narrative of objects and figures draws upon a poetic and lyrical repertoire that is in keeping with a world of past and present fused into a galaxy of activity. What is also prevalent in his work is his flight from reality and a refusal to negotiate the hardships of rural living. Instead, he has created a very personalized imagery where issues of sentiment are submerged. Ha Tri Hieu uses brilliant colours. These blazing colours bathe his paintings with a sensuality where they are used not only to define the forms but spill over to create an atmosphere of mystery. The success of The Gang of Five spearheaded an outburst of creative activity and altered the course of traditional painting in

Ha Tri Hieu - Solo Show 1998 - Catalogue, Mai Gallery, Hanoi.

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Vietnam. The new direction of painting became various and restlessly creative. However, it was also very mindful of deeprooted Vietnamese cultural traditions. Hong Viet Dung (b. 1962), a third member of The Gang of Five, has become famous for his paintings of quiet landscapes and solitary figures. His sense of identity and place has become instantly recognizable, but to fully appreciate his art and his particular vision, one needs to understand more about his intimate connection to Vietnam and its cultural traditions. In particular, illustrating his preoccupation with the expression of aesthetic values, his solitary figures (sometimes holding a single object like a lotus leaf or a fan) highlight his search for the beautiful as opposed to the merely expressive. His idealization of nature, which he renders in soft muted tones, is a coming together of ideas that not only belong to the world of contemporary art but more importantly to his devout Buddhist beliefs. In essence, beauty is seen as a product of harmony. Although Hong Viet Dung has experienced a life that has been open to change, his art provides him with a still point of certainty and a strong respect for the age-old Confucian discipline to which he always returns in his mind. In the oriental social order, tradition and aesthetics have been

firmly intertwined and remain visible in many of the cultural standards practiced in Southeast Asia. Yet while Vietnam gained a new status when colonial dependencies were redefined and again at the point of the liberalization of doi moi, the principles of Buddhism and Taoism have remained pivotal to the understanding of Vietnams contemporary art. Luong Xuan Doan (b. 1952) is an artist, writer and a philosopher: these disciplines are vitally interlinked components of his artistic practice. The one-time soldier who graduated from the Hanoi Fine Arts University in 1980 became a key figure in the formation and development of Vietnams contemporary avant-garde. Central to Luong Xuan Doans art is his exploration not only of ideas, but also its consciousness and existence. By exploring the sensuality of his measured brushstrokes amid the void of colour on traditional do paper and their relationship to his subject matter, one can theorize about his art being both contemporary and traditional. Although his preferred medium is Chinese ink on paper, Luong Xuan Doans art is evidence of the renewal of cultural ideas and a refocus of their relevance on contemporary society through the creative process. The close relationship between his art and the textual forms of tradition reflects his academic interest and a historical narrative that is documented through his use of specific traditional conditions and stimuli for the creation of art. Addressing tradition in a very contemporary manner is Nguyen Xuan Tiep (b. 1956). The son of a musician and a painter, Nguyen Xuan Tieps appreciation of his culture and history has become enveloped with his art. A highly accomplished painter, Nguyen Xuan Tiep consistently draws on past imagery that he parallels with contemporary thought and intellectual discourse. Renowned

Girls by Cotton-Rose Hibiscus Flowers, 1944 Nguyen Gia Tri Mixed media, including lacquer, dyes, egg shell, and gold leaf, on board 130 x 176 cm (4 panels) Courtesy of Duc Minh Collection

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Unrevealed , 2002 Dinh Quan Lacquer, dyes, epoxy and gold leaf on board 60 x 75 cm

thus established an important benchmark for Vietnamese contemporary art. The redeployment of traditional materials with reference to traditional Vietnamese culture has been most profoundly articulated through the art of lacquer painting. Although lacquer ware in Vietnam has a long history, it was considered to be a craft practiced by skilled craftsmen to embellish almost everything, from everyday objects to furniture in the ancient royal palaces and religious artifacts in Buddhist pagodas and communal houses. In addition to beautification, lacquering was a way of preservation. When Victor Tardieu and his colleague Joseph Inguimberty (1896-1971) encouraged new experimentation with lacquer painting, the result was a new art form, uniquely Vietnamese. for his paintings glazed with the aura of fairies or apsaras, he emphasizes the importance of preserving tradition through painting on do paper. It is from this passionate art that Nguyen Xuan Tiep has nourished his ideology, which bears witness to the permanence of a culture and civilization. Like Luong Xuan Doan, Nguyen Xuan Tiep is an accomplished art historian and has been at the forefront in the development of the fine arts in Vietnam. He participated in the first Asia-Pacific Trienniale, organized by the Queensland Art Gallery, Australia, in 1993 and
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Although many artists practiced and adopted lacquer painting to suit their own individual forms of expression, only from about 1957 onwards did it begin to be recognized as one of the principal languages of Vietnamese painting. The most famous lacquer painter, whose widespread and prolonged influence has significantly contributed to contemporary aesthetics with his depictions of languid women attired in traditional ao dai, was Nguyen Gia Tri (1908-1993).2 The artists Tran Van Can and Pham Hau, together with Nguyen Gia Tri, pioneered the

Nguyen Quan (1993): The Avenues of Painting in Vietnam - Tradition and Change. Contemporary Art of Asia and the Pacific. Queensland Art Gallery, Australia.

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development of the lacquer technique. Because of the transformation of social expression that resulted from doi moi, there was a process of acculturation between the traditional Vietnamese culture and the liberalization of expressive styles. It was therefore not surprising that many new generation artists would adapt the medium as a reference not only to honour an ancient academic tradition but more importantly to assert their Vietnamese identity. Four of Hanois most noted lacquer painters are Dinh Quan, Trinh Tuan, Thanh Chuong and Cong Kim Hoa, though other artists also work with the medium at times. Both Dinh Quan (b. 1964) and Trinh Tuan (b. 1961) have gained international reputations through their art and have successfully bridged the dislocations between Vietnams traditional culture and contemporary life. Though Dinh Quan majored in lacquer painting while a student at the Hanoi Fine Arts University, where he had exposure to the best that the medium offered, he developed his own aesthetic early in his career. Dinh Quans redeployment of traditional lacquer painting may indeed reflect traditional practice and is clearly articulated through his profound Buddhist beliefs. His considerable research with new techniques is synthesized with his keen appreciation of the female form. A Mother is the Sky, a Mother is the Earth... I honor women for the love, despair and doubt that they impart to me, says Dinh Quan. And through the feminine form that has become primeval in his world, he has created perspectives to express his emotions. But his paintings are not simply documentations of the female form. Dinh Quan is constantly captivated by feminine complexities that are nourished by his Buddhist ideology and the mythical apsaras of legends that were told to him as a child. Thus, the visual images that result from this constant search for self-enlightenment could be translated into professional and technical practice achieved through the careful deployment of the lacquer process of layering pigments and the precise shaping of materials. In Trinh Tuans lacquer paintings, intimacy manifests itself through a very different kind of figurative expression. The theme of the human form is central to Trinh Tuans work and in his paintings he depicts the private interactions between his subjects with an unmatched thoroughness. Trinh Tuan is unconcerned about the
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rules and rigours of beautification. His subjects circumvent the strictures of conventional comportment. Trinh Tuan recognizes the importance of expressing the relationship between emotion and the physical form, which he expresses through strikingly imposing figures. Referring to the significance of this form, he notes that my figures are often rough hewn and boorish. They are embodied in the complex matrix of human emotion that includes anxiety and despair - for even in the most perfect relationship there is the complicity of torment and harassing moments. He shows us that the human form is not just an object of desire, but also a site of despair. In reality, there is something undeniably serene and beautiful in Trinh Tuans images. Cong Kim Hoa (b. 1962) is one of a handful of women artists who solely paints in lacquer. She is an artist attentive to the crosscurrents of life as a mother and deeply committed to the environment. Her work since the mid-1990s has seized on her childhood landscapes that had indelibly marked her memory. Cong Kim Hoa was drawn to lacquer painting as her medium of expression partly because lacquer painting provided her with new challenges. Through the detailed layering of lacquer, Hoa reflects the rhythm of her own life and that of the Vietnamese woman. In keeping with the intense discipline and practice required in the execution of a lacquer painting is humility, a virtue very much at the essence of Vietnamese society. There are several layers of meaning beyond the visual text that is often divided into sections that are quietly essential to Hoas oeuvre. She draws inspiration from the things around her and even from the children who are her art students. Hoas works, which mingle the realities of traditional and modern life, reflect a vision that relates to the relevance of her role as a mother, wife and teacher. Bringing a different artistic discipline to the art of lacquer painting is Thanh Chuong (b. 1948), who found a correlation between modern art styles and folk art. Thanh Chuongs artistic career combines national and international recognition as an artist with an unshakeable sense of his own identity. Like many artists of his generation, Thanh Chuong overcame vast barriers. Though he entered the Hanoi Fine Arts College in 1960, the tumultuous war years forced him to the battlefield in 1966 and later to work in a variety of occupations. Thanh Chuongs artistic abilities first came to light when he was seven years old. His style of cubism exemplified through the simple lines and vivid

Shireen Naziree (2004): The Colour of Light in Dinh Quan - Lacquer Paintings. Thavibu Gallery, Bangkok.

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primary colours of his art is reflective of his own childhood. But academically, Thanh Chuongs aesthetic values are buried deep in his cultural roots - in the carvings that commonly adorned the communal houses built between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries in northern Vietnam. These carvings share with cubism the breaking of form whether generally or specifically in a three dimensional space. Nguyen Tu Ngiem (b. 1922) translated the traditional language of these carvings into a contemporary vision and influenced many artists to do the same.4 By all scholarly accounts, it is widely understood that Abstractionism was nurtured in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). Following the division of Vietnam in 1954, the cultural environment of the South offered artists greater freedom of expression than in the North. Their exposure to Western art offered more opportunities to learn and experiment with modern trends. Cubism and Abstractionism offered new and dynamic opportunities for expressionism. Although he shows an occasional attachment to elements of realist art, Nguyen Trung (b. 1940) is another senior Vietnamese artist who was unable to resist the allure of Abstract Expressionism. Muted natural tones are subject to the reduced geometric organization of grid-like structure. The shapes and subjects suggest a rich cultural history of early origin reassembled into a dynamic whole. Nguyen Trungs use of non-traditional materials for his mixed media paintings was considered unusual and experimental for the period when artists of his generation found their artistic voice. Superficially, his paintings call to mind European academic influences. But in fact Nguyen Trungs art is about the changing programmes that reflected the scope and breadth of his intellectual inquiry within Vietnams art history. These inspired him to create exciting new contexts and juxtapositions that have made him one of Vietnams most celebrated artists, whose paintings have commanded considerable prices at international art auctions. Landscapes were frequently sketched during the colonial era, when there was much interest in the intrinsic beauty of the Vietnamese landscape. But the identity and reputation of the historical and cultural landscape of Hanoi came to reside most notably in the paintings of Bui Xuan Phai (1921 - 1988), who is recognized as one of Vietnams greatest modern-day painters. A native of Hanoi, Phai spent most of his life in the city. His
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street scenes of Hanoi are more than landscapes; they illustrate his romance with the city. His expressionist depictions of Hanoi, often streets in somber tones devoid of people, were considered subversive at a time when artists were required to adopt a realist patriotic stance. Poor for much of his life, Phai and his exceptionally poignant Hanoi landscapes were only recognized in the 1990s when Vietnam emerged from its isolation. Pham Luan (b. 1954), a graduate of the Hanoi Teachers Training College, is a self-taught artist. Like Phai, Pham Luan expresses his deep affection for the streets of Hanoi through his art. A keen admirer of Phai, Pham Luans paintings of Hanoi seem to be an almost opposite form of representation from the paintings of Phai. Although his imagery too is drawn from everyday life in Hanoi, it appears rich and splendid, which he captures through his signature impressionist style with an evocative symbolic language of colour, form and light. With very little distance from reality, one of the most striking features of Pham Luans work is the notion of romanticism that shines through most of his paintings. The humility that characterizes Bui Xuan Phais paintings continues to have a direct effect on Vietnams new generation artists. Pham An Hai (b. 1967) is part of this generation of Vietnamese artists whose visual references are also sought in the streetscapes of Hanoi. However, he has mobilized memories of his own to re-orient Hanoi within its own modern history. Though Pham An Hai recognizes the romance that remains embedded in the hidden fabric of Hanoi, rather than giving the view of an impressionistic pastoral scene, he refocuses a different awareness through his paintings. Unlike Phai who had to hide his abstract paintings from the authorities as Abstractionism was banned until the second half of the 1980s, Pham An Hais abstract paintings reflect the new urbanization of Hanoi. Being subtle and harmonious, the compositions of Pham An Hai give the feeling not only of streets and elegant buildings, but also of spontaneous, non-planned housing that results from the over-population of the city.5 This mix aptly reflects the artists concern with the influx of migration into the city and its effects on Hanois social environment. This concern, however, does not detract from the poetic presence in his paintings, which evolve intuitively in a spirit of homage capturing the energy of Hanois

Luong Xuan Doan and Phan Cam Thuong (1996): Young Artists of Vietnam. Fine Arts Publishing House, Vietnam. Natalia Kraevskaia (2005): Hanoi. Utopia and Reality. Urban Themes in Contemporary Visual Art; From Nostalgia Towards Exploration. Essays on Contemporary Art in Vietnam, Hanoi.

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Two Ballerinas, 2005 Nguyen Thanh Binh Oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm

missioned realism of the 1970s and early 1980s. Van Duong Thanhs depictions of Hanoi and the Vietnamese countryside layered with vitality openly reflects her creative energy, which she expresses through a variety of media. Besides landscapes, womanhood is central to the artists work. Her ability to depict the female form with an unmatched thoroughness further emphasizes a unique style that is unposed and unconcerned about the rules and rigours of formal portraiture. The subject most associated with Nguyen Thanh Binh (b. 1954) is that of graceful schoolgirls in white ao dai dresses. Nguyen Thanh Binhs explorations celebrate a joyful union of a lyrical past and the rhythms of daily and seasonal change with a deeply felt reverence for the citys intrinsic beauty and historical culture. In the paintings of Van Duong Thanh (b. 1951), intimacy manifests itself through her life experiences. Born into a family of rural intellectuals in southern Vietnam, she has drawn upon memories of her childhood to enable her to formulate the compositional strategies that emphasize the mood of intimacy in her paintings. Her close friendship with Bui Xuan Phai played a critical role in guiding her understanding of and recognizing the value of art. Although Van Duong Thanh has lived in Sweden since the late 1980s, her love for the elemental qualities of the Vietnamese landscape, which may be read as idealized, are filled with intimate memories. Believing that art was an outgrowth of life, she survived the ugliness and difficulties that her generation endured. She achieved acclaim early in her career, despite her individual artistic language that was unrelated to the comCataloguing female portraiture in a very different manner is Dinh Y Nhi (b. 1967), who represents a new generation of Vietnamese women. Because the Vietnamese art world now offers room for a greater variety of initiatives, the language of Dinh Y Nhis work enduring spirit of community, underlined by moments of beauty. Such images are in stark contrast to the social establishment of his student years. The formality of his paintings resonates with the romanticism associated during the early years of the cole des Beaux Arts though he graduated from the Hanoi College of Fine Arts in 1972. His universally appealing paintings that are underlined by moments of quiet beauty exemplify Nguyen Thanh Binhs engagement with the classical philosophies of the Orient, implying that the surface of his paintings conceals a deeper meaning than what meets the eye. Nguyen Thanh Binhs influence on Vietnams art market and his international acclaim are proof that art has served as a powerful engine of social change.

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directly on his homosexuality. Within his works there is a forecasting of a shift in the representation of figures and images, raising questions of limits and censorship. The disruption of the connections between idealized beauty and sexuality in the traditional Asian context makes Truong Tans art both memorable and disturbing. The suggestive nature and provocation of male homosexuality certainly does not fit within the framework of any of the genres and codes that typically charge mainstream Vietnamese contemporary art. It is this undercurrent and the tensions that circulated around Truong Tans art that struck a sore spot within Hanoi art circles in the 1990s. It prompted him to shift his artistic practice to Paris where he could unquestionably express himself as an artist and achieve greater commercial acceptance. Although clearly conscious of the dilemmas facing artists who want to comment upon their own experiences as gay men, Truong Tan chose to return to Hanoi and weather the storm. A similar sense of observation defines the art of Le Quang Ha (b. 1963), who like Truong Tan has gained a substantial reputation through uncomfortable choices of expression. Le Quang Has focus is on the ugliness of contemporary Vietnamese life. He avoids traditional academic subjects and instead chooses to address
Portrait in Green, 1998 Le Quang Ha Oil on canvas 40 x 50 cm

contains several layers of meaning with more complex origins than the figurative art of Van Duong Thanhs

issues that many artists prefer to ignore and overlook. One of the most striking aspects of contemporary art is the central place it occupies in societys cultural consciousness. In Vietnam, the art of Le Quang Ha, who graduated from the Industrial Arts College, Hanoi, in 1992, is still regarded as an outburst within the official and social framework - though indeed the very controversy that he arouses has become the leading indicator that his art is important. There is nevertheless much vitality and meaning in the brutality of his art, which is often executed through the traditional medium of lacquer painting - a process that is not only arduous but also toxic. Le Quang Has art, with its ironic comments, bears strong dimensions related to issues confronting new generation Vietnamese and presents a sophisticated discourse, which mingles the realities of traditional and modern values within contemporary Vietnam.

generation of women artists. The raw-edged fashion of illustration, which has become her hallmark, often serves as a revealing mirror of ourselves, both beautiful and horrific. Her imagery, which is almost always in black and white or spare colours arranged in a quasi-abstract manner of solids and voids, is indeed moulded on a keen observation of the challenges that confront the new generation of Vietnamese. Her figures, which lack any impulse to the ideal, are themselves universal and are portraits that cross the cultural boundaries of the perception of traditional Vietnamese aesthetics. The realism of her work exposes the movement and development of the self, where the soul is exposed to multiple personalities - a form of artistic expression discouraged during the era of socialist realism. Vietnamese visual culture has long been perceived to be essentially expressionist, but this situation is dissolving. There has also been an increasing tendency amongst painters searching for new beginnings. The art of Truong Tan (b. 1963) often draws

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Extending Horizons

Vietnam became a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in July 1995. What underpins the unique hybrid of ASEAN is its strategic economic objectives relating to all areas of cooperation and its policy of non-interference in the internal politics of member nations. For Vietnam, ASEAN membership transformed its relationship with its Southeast Asian neighbours from one of suspicion to one of trust. But equally important, ASEAN membership and the subsequent normalizing of its relations with the United States and China allowed Vietnam to integrate its economy with that of the Asia-Pacific region and the global market, thus encouraging trade and direct foreign investment. This in turn reinforced its domestic policy of doi moi. Joining ASEAN in turn facilitated membership in larger cooperative entities such as APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation). As a member of ASEAN, Vietnam was able to benefit from the development experiences of its fellow members, which would accelerate the development of a competitive market-oriented economy. The last decade of the twentieth century witnessed much of the worlds attention on the economic and political developments of Southeast Asia. The resilience demonstrated by countries in the region affected by the downturn of the Asian financial crisis reflected the strong ideological values that they share, though Vietnam was spared the worst effects of the crisis. The common interrelationships between the cultural origins and lifestyles of the Vietnamese and those of the ASEAN communities facilitated a continuous negotiation in many areas. As part of this process, Vietnamese artistic explorations and perspectives have been exposed to a new set of relationships and geographies. Together with the rapid economic expansion that resulted from doi moi, its cooperation with ASEAN radically changed the artistic face of Vietnam. Hanoi appeared set to become an important centre for the arts once again. The vitality of the public sphere - the enthusiastic gallery scene alongside several alternative spaces for more experimental art, particularly in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City - is matched with vigour amongst artists and fueled by a coterie of

enthusiastic international art collectors. Whereas the material progress of Vietnams wealthier neighbours such as Malaysia and Singapore is not paralleled by cultural achievement, Vietnamese are proud of their countrys reputation for producing writers and artists. This attitude prevails despite the fact that the cost of owning a piece of art is still beyond the economic means of ordinary Vietnamese. Vietnamese art has experienced expansion on many levels. The contemporary art scene of Hanoi has undergone a modern-day renaissance that is bold but remains true to its roots, carefully steering between the foreign and the familiar. It mainly veers towards a multicultural audience, encouraging a wide variety of disciplines to be crossed, questioned and fused, allowing for a greater cultural diversity to exist and be nurtured. The Vietnamese art presence within the ASEAN context has been like a veritable flood, perhaps compensating for decades of absence. But arts legitimacy is often defined by the degree of its exchange with contexts other than its own and its experiences elsewhere. The expansion of Vietnams art activity has not solely been bound to the objectives of commercial art, but has simultaneously been recognized by the regions most prestigious art institutions. In 1993, Vietnam was invited to participate in the first Asia-Pacific Trienniale of Contemporary Art in Brisbane, Australia. The purpose of the exhibition was an in-depth exploration of works by artists from the Asia-Pacific region. Not only has Vietnam been a subsequent participant, but also artworks by Vietnamese artists, including those by Truong Tan, have been included in the permanent collection of the Queensland Art Gallery, the main host of the Trienniale. Another milestone was the inclusion of Vietnams participation in the Fourth Asian Arts Exhibition organized by the Fukuoka Asian Arts Museum in Japan in 1977. The continuous ASEAN collaborative efforts that include art exhibits and competitions have sought to focus on the relationships, conjunctions and disjunctions amongst the different

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The Man In The Street, 2002 Pham An Hai Oil on canvas 80 x 100 cm

realities of its member countries. These events have been a platform for Vietnams artists to realize their

recognized Vietnams diverse range of fine art representations. The National Art Gallery of Malaysia and the Singapore Arts Museum have included works by new generation Vietnamese artists as part of their respective ASEAN art collections. And what might lie beyond the horizon? The dawn of the twenty-first century has certainly been one of the most vibrant periods in the history of Vietnamese contemporary art. The Communist government of Vietnam remains dominant, and the prospect of political pluralism is distant. Vietnams AntiCorruption Law, which is scheduled to come into effect in June 2006, is aimed at increasing the transparency of the state apparatus and holding government officials accountable for any misdemeanor. Vietnams likely World Trade Organization

role in an area that has been determined by the aftermath of colonialism and globalization. Through the visual framework of regional art competitions, Vietnams emerging artists were allowed visual investigation into other societies. Both Pham An Hai and Le Quang Ha have been recipients of the Phillip Morris ASEAN Art Awards. Though the competition developed into a predictable format, Pham An Hai described the experience as an important journey for a young emerging artist. Subsequently, the regions art museums have

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accession in mid-2006 and the continuously improving business environment have spurred foreign investment into the country. Alongside these prospective developments, Vietnams contemporary art takes its place. The art world too has had to come to terms with globalization, which means that old certainties are losing their hold. That many Vietnamese artists have found refuge from their tumultuous past in the idea of beauty is beyond a doubt. However, Vietnamese art practice is not without pitfalls. It presents many sites of contention, whether in terms of cultural identity, geography or social history. The stringent censorship on artistic expression imposed by the state has resulted in many artists falling back on cultural aesthetic, either as a response to the lack of current alternatives or to accepting the problematic relativism that goes with it. Rather than being gripped by the dealings of uncertainty and the paralysis of censorship, the large majority of Vietnams professional art world rarely responds to contemporary critical analysis and at times is presented pre-packaged with a limited discourse. The success of established artists and the vitality of the art market have fermented a new creativity that has led to a matter of contention and serious concern - the duplication of paintings. This provocative practice, overt in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and other popular tourist destinations, has seeped through to the international art market; copies of artworks by Bui Xuan Phai and other master painters are regularly bought and sold openly. Another example of unprofessional practice is the imitating of established artists styles or what may be deemed as popular subject matter. This enthusiasm sits comfortably with artists who have not been subjected to the socio-economic dilemmas of earlier generation artists and are enveloped by the lure of rapid economic gain. Despite these concerns, at the same time anachronisms are emerging as new visions and imperatives at a time when artists have never been freer to create their own contexts. Themes from personal experience and mythology are being revised and rewritten from a more hybrid cultural perspective. At the same time, Vietnams progressive economic growth is encouraging and with it there lies the promise of reducing the tedious political and economic imperatives to which artists are subjected. In turn, this new situation would challenge artists to find greater expression and explore more diverse issues generated in extended

artistic language. The seriousness of Vietnamese contemporary art could become more significant if it is allowed to embed the linkage between its cultural psyche and its politics - not necessarily overtly, but even subtly. Such variation would certainly exceed the present conventional aesthetic and position Vietnams art to become more significant than what it already represents. What sets Vietnams art scene apart from that of its ASEAN neighbours is that many of the established artists come from a generation devastated by conflict and repressive situations. They have found refuge in their art that allows them to reflect upon the present and the past. Through arts enriching process and the legacy of their galvanized cultural history, they are creating an exciting dialogue responsive to a world beyond their own cultural and geographical boundaries. What extends beyond the horizon for Vietnamese contemporary art is evidence of the fact that it will continue to grow, invigorate the senses and represent itself in new ways of seeing.

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Vietnamese Lacquer Art

The technique of using lacquer for handicrafts and decorative items in the household has a long tradition in Vietnam since it was introduced from China centuries ago. The French introduced Western paintings and techniques into the country, in particular after the establishment of the Fine Arts University, cole des Beaux-Arts dIndochine, in Hanoi in 1925. The traditional lacquer technique, which had earlier been used for handicrafts and decorative household items, was now applied to paintings, creating a new art form. The first lacquer paintings were quite traditional in expressing scenes of natural beauty. Later, lacquer paintings promoted socialist and communist values. However, since Vietnam became more outward looking in the 1980s and 1990s, young artists have explored and reinvented the old art form, placing it in a new, contemporary context to create highly innovative and interesting paintings. Each artist has different ways of using lacquer to produce paintings, and some details are known only to the artists themselves. However, there are some features common to all lacquer paintings.

The Lacquer and Colours


Lacquer is a clear sap coming from any of six species of trees growing in Vietnam, the main ones being Rhus (or Toxicodendron) succedanea in the north and Melanorrhoea (or Gluta) laccifera in the south, both belonging to the family Anacardiaceae. Rhus succedanea has been known for a long time as the son tree, an indigenous name. Lacquer is harvested in the same way as rubber, by making an incision and letting the sap flow. Fresh lacquer is whitish, and turns brown upon exposure to air. Lacquer growers can only obtain it between midnight and dawn. The sap thus collected is contained in large bamboo barrels covered tightly by sticking wax paper on their surfaces to make them air-proof. The containers of lacquer are afterwards taken away and left untouched for several months in a cool, dark, well-aired place until the different elements of lacquer settle into three major layers. Only then does the sorting out begin. The uppermost layer is lacquer of the first stratum (reddish brown lacquer); it is least sticky, yellowish brown and limpid.

The Board
The artists buy the boards ready-made from suppliers. They come in a variety of sizes. The core of the board is made from plywood. One layer of lacquer is applied to the plywood, which is left to dry. Next, thin cotton cloths soaked in clay are attached to both sides of the plywood. After the cotton/clay mixture dries, the board will be smoothed and polished. This process is performed five times. Layers of black lacquer are then applied, and the board is left to dry before being polished. Thus the final product appears as a piece of black board, very smooth and durable. It consists of several layers, is very resistant, and will not crack due to fluctuations in temperature or humidity. It may warp slightly due to these changes, but it is quite easy to straighten it again, as it remains flexible.

The resin is then filtered to completely remove all impurities, put into earthenware or ceramic jars, and continuously and evenly stirred with bamboo or wooden sticks for several hours to get rid of vapour. The next layer is lacquer of the second stratum; it is stickier and of darker, yellowish-brown colour. Iron containers should now be used. One must stir the resin with an iron rod for several hours to obtain a black, glossy lacquer known as then lacquer. The undermost stratum is very sticky and soft, of muddy yellow colour. It stiffens when dried out and is called hom lacquer. It should be noted that lacquer is not a harmless substance. Liquid lacquer is a common skin irritant and a cause of contact dermatitis, as well as being potentially carcinogenic. It becomes quite harmless when dry. Black lacquer stems from a chemical reaction between lacquer and iron, and results from stirring the lacquer with an iron rod for a few days. Lacquer will be mixed with various natural or artificial dyes to produce the colours

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the artists want. Several shades of red are extracted from a naturally occurring red mineral, cinnabar (mercuric sulfide). White is produced from eggshell. Eggs from ducks are preferred because they have a better structure than hens eggs. The eggshells are cleaned and sometimes even burned to obtain a brownish tinge. Most bright colours come from artificial dyes.

Other Materials
Several other materials may be used to make lacquer paintings, some of the most common being gold leaf and silver leaf. A thin layer of silver powder allows the black board to shine through and thus create a shade effect. Gold leaf is often applied as the final layer. A range of other materials may also be used, such as shells, sand, epoxy and clay.

Applying Colours and Lacquer


Making a lacquer painting is a long and arduous process. It may take several weeks, depending on the specific technique of the artist and how many layers of lacquer are included. It is important to keep in mind that the lacquer layers are painted and applied with uneven thickness so as to create an interesting array of interfaces (and colours) after the grinding and polishing is done.
My Thoughts, 2006 Lacquer, dyes, eggshell, silver powder and gold leaf on board 40 x 40 cm

Care
The next two pages show one example by the artist Trinh Tuan. A lacquer painting is very durable. The board is hard and strong and is not easily damaged. The painting can easily be polished by the palm of the hand to make it cleaner and more lustrous. For simplicitys sake, this is a small lacquer painting with three elements only: a man, his thoughts and a bird. Some artists have modified this process and come up with their own innovations.

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First, the composition of the painting is drawn with chalk on the board.

Duck eggshell is inserted into carved areas of the board where the thoughts go, and the background is painted with black lacquer.

A layer of green lacquer is painted over the eggshell, the bird is painted red, and silver leaf and clear lacquer are applied to the mans body. The background is painted bright blue.

The bird is painted darker red. The thoughts are painted with black lacquer and silver powder is applied. The man is painted with purple lacquer and silver powder is applied to his body. The background is painted dark blue.

The thoughts are painted first with a layer of black and then with green lacquer. The background is painted bright blue and the bird is painted bright red.

The thoughts area is grinded and polished by sandpaper since it is currently raised above the rest of the board due to its many layers. The bird and background are also grinded and polished, though with a lighter touch. A layer of black lacquer is added on top of the man.

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Cong Kim Hoa

Cong Kim Hoa holds her position independently amidst a circle of art experts - for both her brother Cong Quoc Ha and husband Trinh Tuan are established lacquer painters. Diminutive and demure, Cong Kim Hoa nevertheless possesses an inner strength that shines through her art. She originally trained as a ceramist at the Industrial Arts College in Hanoi where she graduated in 1989. Her interest in lacquer painting was nurtured in 1994 when she started studying the art from the master lacquer teacher Dang Ngoc Bach after years of experimenting with works on paper. The feminine edge associated with her paintings belies the complexity of her work. Her earlier art was informed by youthful experiments and exposure to ideas from the children in her art classes. Humanity, nature and her devotion to her family and friends make up Cong Kim Hoas close-knit world. A very private person, she was born into a bourgeois family who were stripped of their wealth in 1954. However, education remained a priority for the family. Though born and raised in Hanoi, Cong Kim Hoa found her true voice as an artist away from the coldness of the city. Often retreating to the countryside, she has found inspiration there for her paintings, especially her earlier ones. Though Cong Kim Hoa has always revered the art of both her husband and brother, she successfully distanced herself and established her own career.

b. 1962 Bachelor of Fine Arts Museum collections: National Art Gallery, Malaysia

Orange Composition 2001 | 100 x 100 cm Lacquer, dyes, silver and gold leaf on board

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She has received considerable recognition as one of the finest women lacquer painters. The sensitivity that flows through her paintings is filled with depth and detail; it is full of feeling and abundant with life. The abundance that fills Cong Kim Hoas paintings is not merely representations of physical forms but rather expressions of her emotional knowledge and personal history. She approaches her lacquer painting with assurance. Cong Kim Hoas strong sense of composition is most apparent through her vibrant palette of colour. Arabesques of forms are interwoven in impromptu patterns with shots of colour that glow intermittently through silent hues. Her art is soft and silent - like gentle whispers. Cong Kim Hoa has recently started to produce paintings different from her work of previous years. These new paintings are devoted to abstraction where she transforms three-dimensional space into a flat surface highlighting the full potential of lacquers gloss, for lacquer lends itself well to the language of abstraction. A shrub, a flower or a window - they are rarely realistically described but are rather perceived through the sensations her art prescribes. While her art might not instantly appear spontaneous, it is profound enough to entice the observer with unending awe. Her style continues to loosen and her use of colour has become richer and more vibrant, which she varies like the change of seasons. This development of her new abstract language has been accompanied by a profound harmony of colours that reflects Cong Kim Hoas prolific refinement of her art.

Composition [Face] 2003 | 40 x 40 cm Lacquer, dyes and silver on board

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Dang Xuan Hoa

Dang Xuan Hoa is recognized as one of Vietnams most prominent new generation artists, well known for his compelling modernist paintings. Born in Nam Dinh province, Dang Xuan Hoa graduated from the Hanoi Fine Arts University in 1983. Amongst the pioneering group of emerging artists from the 1988 post doi moi era, Dang Xuan Hoa has clearly benefited from the reformation process that resulted in a new market economy and greater freedom of artistic expression. His ability to poetically translate the years of hardship into an enlightened experience echoes the harmonious connection the artist feels with Vietnam. His maturity was naturally influenced through his friendship with cultural stalwarts such as senior painters Viet Hai and Nguyen Quan, and the writer Duong Tuong. From early in his career and ever since he has been exploring and delving deeper into his own personal cultural history. Dang Xuan Hoas journey has been both rich and enlightened. Early in his career, Dang Xuan Hoa disconnected himself from the stereotypes about art practice and the generalized cultural representation of Buddhist icons, still life or metaphorical images in expressive space. Instead, he endeavored to come to grips with the depth, emotion and spirituality of the things around him, which he captures through the spirit of his personal artistic expression.

b. 1959 Bachelor of Fine Arts Museum collections: Vietnam Fine Arts Museum Singapore Art Museum National Art Gallery, Malaysia

Village Life 1996 | 55 x 75 cm Gouache on paper

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His imagery of objects and figures is visually rich, woven with multiple readings and layers of subtlety, meaning and memory, creating a space that allows for the viewers own response and understanding. Moving between his state of mind and intervals of reality, he constantly sketches life around him, moments that he translates onto his canvasses. Dang Xuan Hoas paintings resonate with both his gentle demeanour and his ability to capture the spirit and personality of what he has seen: the agility of a cat atop a roof, the dance of fruit rolling off a table or the delicacy of a flower in a vase - all are captured with skillful brushstrokes and brought to life with colours from his palette. But more important is the underlying philosophy that lies within Dang Xuan Hoas imagery - one that calls for a solitary journey towards personal revelation. His paintings are filled with the universal language of humanism. This confidence of expression lies in the meditative spirit of his cultural psyche, which has allowed him to continually redefine the unique expression of his feelings and perceptions relating to his background. His two-dimensional style of painting and use of the canvas formulate a view that is translated through his paintings. I cast things on the paintings and let them come to an arrangement by themselves. These words of Picasso best articulate Dang Xuan Hoas painting style, one that allows him to paint with a continuity filled with expression. It is Dang Xuan Hoas confident identity that celebrates a strength that grew out of adversity and has allowed him to place his art in a historical position of engagement with contemporary art.

Artist and Model 2004 | 76 x 100 cm Oil on canvas

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Dinh Quan

Dinh Quan is unquestionably one of Vietnams most profiled lacquer painters. He is noted for his innovative style of painting and the techniques that he personally developed. The appeal of Dinh Quans paintings is best explained in terms of its largesse and layers of expressive detail. On the glossy surfaces of his paintings, Dinh Quan expresses himself freely, addressing large and narrow spaces with a wealth of emotion through the sensuous female forms that resonate with the love and beauty of the legendary nymphs in the rich oral mythology passed down to him by his elders during his childhood. Dinh Quan was born in the port city of Haiphong. His humble upbringing was typical of most Vietnamese, one subjected to poverty with little place for intellectual discourse. But Dinh Quans childhood was rich with tradition, both spiritual and visual. Traditional aesthetics associated with local festivals festooned with colour and with pagodas that were custodians of a wealth of artifacts, together with their rich mythology, became an early inspiration for his aspirations to become an artist. Art was considered a frivolous and unproductive career choice at the time. Supporting himself through much of his years as an art student at the Hanoi Fine Arts University where he was enrolled in the Lacquer Department, Dinh Quan encountered many financial obstacles. But through his art and his continuous desire to seek perfection and truth, Dinh Quan remains one of the most inspiring artists and lacquer painters of his time, and his artistic journey remains an enlightened one.

b. 1964 Bachelor of Fine Arts Museum collections: Vietnam Fine Arts Museum Singapore Art Museum National Art Gallery, Malaysia

Nude 2000 | 120 x 150 cm Lacquer, dyes, silver powder, epoxy and gold leaf on board

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Dinh Quans expressive qualities are unique. Like a true artist, he works with passion. On his trademark large lacquer paintings, he works with limpid and fluid strokes that are determined by his emotions. While his multi-paneled lacquer paintings evoke grandeur, his art displays his personal connection to his Vietnamese roots. Painting with ease and devoid of preconceived ideas, Dinh Quan often starts painting with a central image - be it a young girl or a horse -- and then with an attentiveness to the beauty of nature, he builds his compositions with spiraling strokes that are splendidly flamboyant in colour and contrast. And through the layers of lacquer, which are defined by textures, his lacquer paintings become alive with a subtle depth of memory, emotion and spirituality. Dinh Quan also paints with oil on large canvases, although he is best known for his innovative lacquer paintings. Dinh Quans fascination with the feminine form stems from his deep spiritual convictions that are linked to his strong Buddhist beliefs and filial piety. Through his graceful portrayals of sensuous women often floating amidst lotus flowers and foliage, Dinh Quan expresses mans aspirations for elusive love and the unattainable. These works, which are rich in feeling, enact a spiritually visual dialogue that is a very personal exposure of the artists life journey. Through these very open expressions of emotion in his lacquer paintings, Dinh Quan shares his inspiring journey of self-discovery and spiritual enrichment as part of a never-ending continuum.

A Singer 2001 | 120 x 150 cm Lacquer, dyes, silver powder, epoxy and gold leaf on board

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Dinh Y Nhi

Given the nature of Dinh Y Nhis work, there appears to be a shift in the representation of the female subject, raising many questions. First of all, what are we actually looking at? Questions as to the artists motives and the relationship between the artist and her imagery circulate within the frame of these works. For there appears to be no correlation between the artist and the female subjects she creates. But it is this undercurrent that creates a charge of fascination with Dinh Y Nhis art. The complicity of her work, which mostly reflects upon the emotional condition of women, has documented a distinct zone within Vietnams art territory. It is in this terrain of untypical notions of female beauty and attractiveness that the appeal of Dinh Y Nhis art lies. Her independent style, rendered almost always in monotones of black and white with colour being used very sparingly, is quite unique in Vietnamese contemporary art. The confidence of her volatile brushstrokes fills her figures with character and emotion. Each of her paintings adds to this form of expression. Dinh Y Nhi was born in Hanoi and grew up with art. Her siblings are highly regarded in Vietnamese art circles. Her father, Dinh Trong Khang, was a professor at the Hanoi Fine Arts College and tutored many of Hanois noted artists. Her obvious introduction to art was through her father, and his influence on Dinh Y Nhi is best observed in her early landscape paintings that bear a similar limpid style to his own.

b. 1967 Bachelor of Fine Arts Museum collections: Vietnam Fine Arts Museum Singapore Art Museum National Art Gallery, Malaysia

Two Women 2001 | 71 x 93 cm Gouache on paper

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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She graduated from the Hanoi Fine Arts College in 1989 and although she continued to paint in this manner, by the beginning of the 1990s she had started working solely in black and white. At the college Dinh Y Nhi had typically studied the principles of gouache painting, with black and white generally used for sketching. For Dinh Y Nhi, this was obviously an early inspiration as her first works were drawings in black and white. Her ability to layer the two primary colours results in a wide variation of darkness and light that is rich in its mood. Figures and shapes are sketched with abandon and at times liberally washed in gray. The austerity of her palette is augmented by her broken and uncoordinated arrangement of figures. Yet through the austerity of her subjects there is a certain orderliness in Dinh Y Nhis paintings. However, the most striking aspect of her aesthetic is its expressive nature and the fortitude with which she expresses the emotions of her figures. Surreal forms of gaunt and ghostly figures, rigidly shadowed, display an ethos that is a profound display of maturity for a young artist like Dinh Y Nhi. Over the past decade, Dinh Y Nhis artistic practice has addressed the meeting of culture and emotion in the broadest sense. Her work is a meditation on emotion and its negotiation of the space and life around it, reflecting the wide-ranging materiality of culture. Dinh Y Nhi has sought to stimulate the experience of emotion and invites the viewer to cross the line between the commonplace and the exceptional. She has surveyed the potential of extending the bodys senses by subverting or transforming her figures into the gaunt images that distinguish her art. This is synonymous with an endeavour to create an encounter with art that is isolating and contemplative, while recognizing arts social space. Dinh Y Nhis agenda, it seems, is to bring the viewer beyond passivity to engage in the constructive meaning of her art. To experience Dinh Y Nhis art is an opportunity to move into the enclosure of her own private universe.

The Inner World of Dinh Y Nhi I 2003 | 113 x 154 cm Oil on canvas

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Hong Viet Dung

Hong Viet Dung - together with Dang Xuan Hoa, Pham Quang Vinh, Ha Tri Hieu and Tran Luong - made up The Gang of Five. The group gained recognition in the first half of the 1990s through their highly profiled exhibitions and innovative art that resulted after doi moi. A native of Hanoi, Hong Viet Dung studied painting and graduated from the Hanoi Fine Arts University in 1984. Like his peers, he grew up during the war when food was rationed under the government subsidy system These are memories of sorrow and joy stored in the museum of the artists mind, memories that he draws on to express the melancholy that has become his oeuvre. A highly accomplished painter, Hong Viet Dung is known for his humble demeanor that is reflected in the tranquility of his paintings. Since he started his artistic practice, Hong Viet Dung has never veered from his subject. He is renowned for his Zen-like landscapes, heavily brushed fields of muted colour that seem to quietly pulse and shift. There is always a representation of gentle motion. His translation of colour and space is smooth and unobtrusive. It appears that colour is the purest form of expression for Hong Viet Dung. In the purest form of abstract reality, colours are like musical notes. It is with colour and space that the artist creates the symphonies of landscapes that are enlightening experiences for the viewer. Landscape is the artists autobiography. It features verdant forests and bamboo hedges, sometimes with figures moving through the gentle light.

b. 1962 Bachelor of Fine Arts Museum collections: Vietnam Fine Arts Museum

Girl With Fan 1998 | 90 x 90 cm Oil on canvas

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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His landscapes are both sophisticated and emotional in a familiar form that is understandable. Hong Viet Dung paints confidently in silence, oblivious to public opinion. Hong Viet Dung is best known for his landscapes painted in oils. Of his early works, the noted artist, Nguyen Viet Hai, remarked that Hong Viet Dung excels in oil painting but he should make his works more profound. But this criticism was perhaps given to many young artists at the time, not only to Hong Viet Dung. Hong Viet Dung has demonstrated that the strength of a painting is not dependent on the number of images and details or the state of surface texture, as in abstract painting. By means of a simplicity that characterizes loneliness, Hong Viet Dung is able to express richness and charm. He uses yellow as a dominant colour - a colour that varies in an array of hues. Through articulate brushstrokes and detailing, his canvasses glimmer and glow with sophisticated light, all rendered in a single colour. Hong Viet Dungs paintings call for close scrutiny. The multiplicity of his paintings is evident in the figures that move through his art. They are not states of transition, but in actuality meticulously studied and expressed with acute emotion. It may be a pensive face, a melancholy hand holding a lotus leaf or pampering a small bird. It is precisely this tranquility that has characterized Hong Viet Dungs placid style. Observing Hong Viet Dungs art is similar to watching a large stream continuously in flow. His art is enriched with humanism and emotions in an old-fashioned manner. Whether Hong Viet Dung is qualified to delve deeper into his emotions and ultimately express them through his paintings remains an unanswered question.

Landscape 2003 | 135 x 155 cm Oil on canvas

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Le Quang Ha

Although his artistic career has barely spanned two decades, observers wonder about Le Quang Ha. They wonder about who he really is and about his art. They speculate about his prominence and his forceful artistic vocabulary. In a time when his contemporaries are poetically filling their canvasses with a sophisticated palette of colours, Le Quang Ha has in contrast chosen a path that exceeds conventional aesthetics. Le Quang Ha was born in Hanoi. He graduated from Hanois Industrial Arts College in 1992. Since his first exhibition in Ho Chi Minh City in 1988, Le Quang Has art has forcefully captured the attention of the world around him. Though his message is straightforward, Le Quang Ha is a complex artist. A man with an exceptionally strong personality and with an abundance of nervous energy, Le Quang Ha is a solitary figure, for he is less of an artist who pleases or mystifies his audience than one who indulges them in the process of exposing truths. Ironically, the visual language of his early paintings in the 1990s was filled with romanticism - visual symphonies of a beautiful woman embracing maybe a solitary bloom, a youth lost in thought or loving couples engrossed in intimate conversation. Often the amorous mood of his compositions would be embellished with foliage and colours that subtly suggested flirtatious passion. But this lyrical language did not last long.

b. 1963 Bachelor of Fine Arts Museum collections: Singapore Art Museum Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan

Odalisque 2002 | 90 x 120 cm Oil on canvas

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Perhaps it is through his artistic solitude that he allowed a new depth of consciousness to evolve in his paintings. Instead, he expressed a new understanding in his art, one that demanded attention to the reality of disorder. One might say that his art derives from the existential nature of being, where he isolates objects and images drawn from the material world and transforms them into a cynical system of visual forms. The duality of this reflective consciousness could be visualized through an image of a very old tree, ghostlike, its intermingled branches stripped of beauty and life. He expresses his deepest feelings and his concern for moral deterioration through the ugliness that screams from his paintings. Obese women shamelessly display sagging breasts or physically grotesque men are clad in official garb. It is through this deliberate negativity blotched with deformation that Le Quang Ha has found his oeuvre. It is in the realm of this personal inner conflict of the artist where one may discover the depths of realism. Le Quang Ha shares affinities with the Chinese contemporary writers Wei Hui and Mo Yan, who express similar concerns about modern society in which the corrupting nature of economic wealth and power has collided with truth and integrity. The volatile characteristics and vibrant colours of his paintings demonstrate Le Quang Has search for an identity that functions in reality. And to the extent that his art remains as much a mystery and as critical as he is, it is the inevitable product of a society in need of exposing its reverse side. Vietnamese art is in need of a Le Quang Ha as a critical counterbalance to some of the overly romantic and pleasing art that is being created and sold.

Woman Defecating 2004 | 80 x 100 cm Lacquer and dyes on board

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Luong Xuan Doan

Returning from the battlefield to receive an art education, graduating from the Hanoi Fine Arts University, Luong Xuan Doan rapidly rose through the ranks of Hanois art circles and the countrys cultural elite. Born in Hanoi, Luong Xuan Doan comes from a family of intellectuals and cultural activists, among whom are several celebrated artists. Luong Xuan Doan is more than an artist. He is regarded as a Renaissance man in Vietnamese art circles. A man with a unique view of life through art, Luong Xuan Doan, through his efforts in building a bridge between artists and the government bureaucracy, has been indispensable largely through his understanding of the need to protect the voice of artistic expression. He is also a writer, but remains first of all an artist. Luong Xuan Doans experiences during the war were reflected in his early paintings. His oil paintings of the 1980s and early 1990s are filled with memories of the war at Truong Son, where many young lives were sacrificed for the love of the nation. Pathos and lyricism tinged with religion identify these paintings based both on realism and legends, always questioning mans destiny. Luong Xuan Doan is not an outwardly religious man, but wears his conviction close to his heart with the belief that good will be rewarded with good and evil with evil. This lifelong philosophy exemplifies his generous personality. It is his belief that art is merely a means of expression and a communication between the past and the present.

b. 1952 Bachelor of Fine Arts Museum collections: Vietnam Fine Arts Museum National Art Gallery, Malaysia

Bamboo Roots 1996 | 39 x 54 cm Chinese ink on paper

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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In these early examples of his art, Luong Xuan Doan often portrayed his subjects in a surreal space where the dead and the living coexist and young girls who perished in the war are transformed into angels floating towards the heavens. Gentle tones, often green, intoned the sadness. This surreal backdrop to his art was often translated as religious art. Luong Xuan Doan is acutely sensitive to people and the integration of art and his social conscience has been the key to his noble manner. Luong Xuan Doans oil paintings are fine and meticulous mirrors of his own careful persona. He accords the same detailed attention to all his work, regardless of size. This could partly be through the influence of the senior painter, Luong Xuan Nhi, his uncle, or from his admiration of works by Matisse. Luong Doan Xuan once remarked: Even Matisses palette is beautiful. Ironically, it is also this obsession with precision and detail that has resulted in his limited output of paintings. Apart from painting, Luong Xuan Doan is a noted graphic artist and regularly illustrates covers for poets and writers. These illustrations are always highlighted by Luong Xuan Doans surreal strokes in dramatically contrasting colours and shapes. The artist is renowned for his paintings on do and xuyen paper, mainly using Chinese ink and watercolours. Several of these paintings use figures of mankinds presence in a world of mysticism embellished with prosperity. His lines are soft and fluid and at times witty. The translucency of the Chinese ink or watercolours on the delicate paper projects a sensuality that is as detailed as a breath of air or the divine taste of a delicacy. Luong Xuan Doans art is his legacy to society, for it is his belief that if we have experienced and recorded art, we have viewed many things unseen by other people.

Women Of Vietnam 2001 | 81 x 81 cm Gouache on cardboard

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Nguyen Thanh Binh

By all accounts, Nguyen Thanh Binh is a quiet, gentle personality and one of the most commercially successful artists in Vietnam. Born in Hanoi into a family of intellectuals, who benefited with a few advantages from the communist regime, Nguyen Thanh Binh experienced a relatively contented childhood though he was subject to hardships later in his life during the subsidy system period. Like many aspiring artists, he chose to study at the Hanoi Fine Arts College, from where he graduated in 1972 and later specialized in oil painting at the Gia Dinh College of Fine Arts in Ho Chi Minh City, where he works and lives. Nguyen Thanh Binh is seen as an individualist who expresses his unique view of life through his art. Although at the start of his career Nguyen Thanh Binh worked closely with a group comprising mostly abstract artists, he never allowed himself to be influenced by anyone. In opposition to the avant-garde of his generation and the taste of the contemporary, Nguyen Thanh Binh chose to paint compositions detail-laden with the same sentiment that describes his own temperament. Nguyen Thanh Binh is best known for graceful figures of schoolgirls in white ao dai dresses, ballet dancers and musicians - subjects that he renders in organized and strong compositions. Nguyen Thanh Binhs canvasses resound with figures that define his own position and place in life. Schoolgirls, young mothers asleep alongside contented babies and children playing their musical instruments are amongst the subjects that Nguyen Thanh Binh creates as part of his peaceful and dreamy world, featuring an ideal existence rather than real life.

b. 1954 Bachelor of Fine Arts

The Conductor 2003 | 75 x 95 cm Oil on canvas

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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These are the subjects that have given him palpable joy for the last fifteen years. These graceful figures painted in sophisticated soft tones are also the reason for Nguyen Thanh Binhs recognition as one of Vietnams most successful painters. Even though Western impressionism has been an influential guidepost in Nguyen Thanh Binhs art, his aesthetic is clearly defined by the oriental conscience that has made him into an integrated man, aware of and purposeful to the world around him. Nguyen Thanh Binhs personal approach to painting is romantically linked to poetry and music. Life around him provides him with an unending muse. And like a composer, Nguyen Thanh Binh is able to play variations upon variations on the same theme. His instruments are his colours, which are endlessly orchestrated with serenity, making his paintings timeless and intimate. His daughters ballet dancing, once the main stimulus for his creative urge, still remains the inspiration for his impressionist styled dancers. On his canvasses, the artist creates rhythm through his ability to reduce space to modeled forms like the sandy beaches or stages that quietly recede to the background. A sense of reverence is inferred as the artist invites the viewer to focus on the rhythmic movements of his dancers or to experience the melancholy music of his performers. Although he has obviously studied a wide range of European artistic styles and media, none of them are evident in his style of painting, for he has never allowed himself to be influenced by them. Often painting deliberately with a limited palette, the artist is able to capture fleeting moments of movement through gentle and singular brushstrokes. Fingers slipping over the keys of a piano or the graceful gestures of a conductors hands are captured with experienced brushstrokes. Nguyen Thanh Binhs own development as an artist reflects an appreciation of both the Western and oriental schools of thought, with his adaptation of Impressionist theory and technique fused with his inspiration from Japanese poetry, where a few words deliver much meaning.

A Concert 2004 | 100 x 100 cm Oil on canvas

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Nguyen Trung

Nguyen Trung is one of the most influential artists in southern Vietnam and highly regarded as an abstract painter. Born in Soc Trang, Nguyen Trung was enrolled at the Gia Dinh College of Fine Arts in Saigon in 1962, but due to the socio-political ethos of the period, he was unable to continue and honed his painting skills on his own. The horrors of war, which dominated South Vietnam for twenty years, allowed very narrow avenues for art to develop. Against this backdrop, Nguyen Trung spent much of this time avoiding precariously dangerous situations and explosive chaotic locales. However, his aspiration for a peaceful and reunified country was relentless as was his strong will to strive for artistic perfection regardless of the circumstances. He once bitterly remarked: Westerners show little regard for our creative work. But in such circumstances they only hold in esteem those who stay and continue to paint instead of fleeing the country. In the interpretation of this remark, he referred to the relationship of an artists personal commitment to ones loyalty to a nation. Nguyen Trungs shift to abstractionism and the development of his art in the 1990s has been an important guidepost for new generation artists. His efforts have singularly paved the way for Vietnamese abstract art. The importance of Nguyen Trungs exceptional art has been widely embraced by the larger artistic community, cementing his position as the most important abstract painter of his generation.

b. 1940 Art studies (wartime) Museum collections: Vietnam Fine Arts Museum Singapore Art Museum Bassano del Grappa Fine Arts Museum, Italy

Monastery 2002 | 100 x 100 cm Oil, acrylic and papier mch on canvas

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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The translation of Nguyen Trungs art is closely linked to his own cultural past. The montage of textures is unexpectedly abstract. They are reminiscent of traditional enameled celadon-glazed ceramics or the tops of traditional Dong Son bronze drums. Working primarily with colours that suggest metals, through his painterly control and the use of copper tones striated with light and dark gray he strives to recapture the cultural aspirations of the past. But these poetic aspirations have never been the intent of Nguyen Trung; instead, they are the medium to express his personal emotions and his never-ending quest for truth and peace. Nguyen Trungs paintings after Liberation in 1975 at first were characterized by realistic commentaries that typically portrayed the bounty of nature and the industrious people of the countryside. It was through these pastoral representations and portraits, filled with grace and harmony, that Nguyen Trung initially earned his position in the history of Vietnams modern art. However, portraiture is a minor-key narrative in the artists oeuvre. He preferred the presence of abstract exploration, which he researched in depth during his time in Paris at the beginning of the 1990s. For Nguyen Trung, this study was not merely an academic exercise but presented a fine opportunity for him to assess the major themes and subjects with which he chose to engage. It also revived his interest in abstract painting as a personal form of expression. Nguyen Trungs art remains independent, lively and serene; it is recognizably embodied in colour and texture that envisage a broad assembly of emotions.

Nguyen Trung was deeply shocked by the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York on 9/11. In his painting, a resurrected Christ figure rises from the devastation of the World Trade Center

9/11 2001 | 100 x 100 cm Oil, acrylic and papier mch on canvas

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Pham An Hai

When idea and form melt into each other, the overall sense of spatial unity can echo the harmony usually reserved for the art of a well-established painter. The synchronicity of form and technique apparent in the canvasses of Pham An Hai reflects this happy meeting of intention and its visible expression through his abstract paintings. Pham An Hais subject is essentially the streets of Hanoi. The novelty and abstract aesthetic, along with a strong spatial awareness, signal a departure from the traditional depictions of Hanoi. Pham An Hais generation of artists have not been subjected to the same cluster of issues as those of earlier generations. Pham An Hai was born in Hanoi. His trajectory is a familiar one. A graduate of Hanois Fine Arts University in 1995, Pham An Hai embarked on his artistic career at a time when art was experiencing a broad revival. Pham An Hai has a great feel for Hanoi, a city that he describes with much intimacy and emotion. His own experiences of the city are textured with memories, including one of an accident that left him severely injured. As a result of this misfortune, Pham An Hai painstakingly stretched his intellect and talent to a sharper focus and knitted these into his artistic narrative, resulting in a more mature intellectual sense, one that belied his youth. Pham An Hais excursion into an abstract narrative is bold, instinctive and inspiring. Each painting has its own moment of imminence. The changing nature of the seasons or time of day comes into sharp focus and makes persuasive intellectual sense in Pham An Hais expressive landscapes.

b. 1967 Master of Fine Arts

Village 2001 | 80 x 80 cm Oil on canvas

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Hanoi has remained an important focus in much of Pham An Hais work. He has reconfigured the city into a myriad of forms. He reduces streets of houses to large flat, smooth shapes, rhythmic and grand - abstract and definitely modern. Despite the simple clarity of each painting, each representation is transformed into a vehicle for an imaginative journey to the place of his landscape. Pham An Hais mechanical drawing, reflecting an architectural discipline, may account for his precise rendering of detail. Interlocking grids intermingle with flat spaces that are enlivened with the luster of colour. Pham An Hais preference for sharp colours is refreshing and beautiful. In this context, colour is used as the purest form of expression, the purest abstract reality. The warm hues reflect the artists love of life and his warm and gentle personality. At the same time, they exude the vitality and chaos of Hanoi. Although Pham An Hai has an ongoing romance with the city of his birth, the contemporary face of urbanization has not escaped his artistic eye. Because the landscape of Hanoi is part of his autobiography, he has been able to fuse new developments in the city with those of its past. These forms and colours reflect Pham An Hais emotional development not only as an artist but also as a disciplined personality. The artists self-portraits are equally interesting. Solitary and sensitive, they bear the similar grid of lines, though finer and more limpid. These are not necessarily an attempt to recreate anything other than an emotional landscape - a familiar form that can be understood in a simple way, one that transports you to the heart of the artist. Pham An Hai is a serious artist whose art is significant because it is an affirmative synthesis of a new generation artists views of Hanoi.

Night in Hanoi 2003 | 80 x 100 cm Oil on canvas

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Pham Luan

In trying to locate Pham Luans position within the context of Vietnamese art, most critics resort to comparison with the French Impressionist painter, Claude Monet. Pham Luan undoubtedly shares much with Monet, not least in subject matter and attention to detail, although philosophically Pham Luan has never shown any interest in Monets work to the extent of not viewing the masters paintings when abroad. Hanoi, with its scenic location on the banks of the Red River, its lakes and ponds, the clarity of light, verdant greenery, elegant French architecture, and the wealth of its own culture -- the contrasts of East and West interwoven - was in fact Pham Luans teacher. A teacher by training, Pham Luan is a self-taught artist, born in Hanoi. A keen admirer of the late Bui Xuan Phai, with whom he forged a friendship, Pham Luan attributes his confidence as a painter to the advice that he received from Phai: Drawing is the best way of self-teaching. And like Phai, he started out portraying the old streets of Hanoi. But unlike his mentor, Pham Luan did not display the same melancholy and nostalgia. Though Pham Luans life history had been marked by the rigid restrictions of the pre doi moi regime and the war, it was not as dark as that of Bui Xuan Phai. Amongst the noted artists who have found correlation with scenes of Hanoi is Trinh Huu Ngoc with his fields of flowers that skirt the city, and Le Thanh Son who is renowned for his sunny streets. And then there are the streets of Phai: best characterized by empty streets quiet in somber hues, the stillness only broken by uneven rows of rooftops.

b. 1954 Autodidact

Hanoi Street 1997 | 60 x 72 cm Oil on canvas

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Pham Luans perspective on Hanoi is panoramic and different. His unique landscape manner and superlative colour sense are instantly recognizable and yet have attracted both passionate acclaim and criticism. Pham Luans eye for detail is meticulous. He typically views his landscapes with vast angles from an elevated position that allows him to capture scenes in full perspective. Scenes of two or three-storied houses located on a street corner, complemented by rows of trees with widespread foliage and framed by the sky, exemplify the detail with which he surveys his landscapes. Darkness and light are fundamental to Pham Luans details. Streams of light may bathe the upper floors of his houses contrasting the darkness of windowpanes. And in contrast to Phais empty streets, Pham Luans streets are always buoyant with activity and opulent with colour. Many of Pham Luans canvasses contain references to the changing seasons, which are best observed through his interest in trees. The yellow leaves of autumn sway in the wind and the cold of winter is felt through the naked branches brushing against the elegant mansions. Pham Luan employs two styles of painting. Some of his scenery is faithfully depicted with naturalistic accuracy. Besides this descriptive style, Pham Luan easily shifts to a more expressive style where space is illuminated by sensations of color and enlivened by details in the figures that occupy that space. Engaging Pham Luans paintings is like reading a poem. His early works were distinguished by their visible realism: azure skies, luxuriant vegetation punctuated by glorious blooms in violet and scarlet, houses napping in the shade of verandahs or bamboo partitions. As his art developed, Pham Luan adopted a more lucid painting style where colours blended to form masses and figures became more relaxed. At times, Pham Luan chooses to remember Hanoi in its past beauty, devoid of the urbanization that is inevitably enveloping the city. Pham Luan excels in delineating a scene that is itself impressionistic. Viewed up close, his large paintings take on an abstract character but on moving away the scenery becomes more distinct, implying the same sensations of changing nature in reality.

Street in the Afternoon 1997 | 74 x 100 cm Gouache on paper

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Thanh Chuong

Nguyen Thanh Chuong is commonly known as Thanh Chuong. His paintings came to critical attention at a time when artistic theory and expression were experiencing a renaissance. Born in Hanoi, his artistic talents were nurtured as a young child and he started painting at seven years of age. He entered the Hanoi Fine Arts College in 1960, but like many artists of his era, he served as an engineer during the war. After the war ended, he worked for a magazine. These experiences were obviously valuable life lessons that have contributed to Thanh Chuongs success as a painter. Over the course of time, Thanh Chuong has combined the theories of cubism with those of traditional folk art painting, embellished with the primary colours similar to those in Dong Ho pictures. Many would regard Thanh Chuongs oeuvre to be similar to the cubism that spread to Vietnam in the 1950s and became a popular form of expression in the 1980s, especially through the influence of works by Picasso. But his concepts exceeded such academic terminology, because his drawings were inspired by the traditional folk sculpture of the Vietnamese village communal houses in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This realization that cubism had resided in a familiar domain provided an important link for Thanh Chuong and his contemporaries. Previously, Nguyen Tu Nghiem had vehemently argued that his art was devoid of influences by Picasso. Thanh Chuongs art is serious and unique for the main reason that his style of cubism is closely related to the cubist sculptures common in village communal houses.

b. 1949 Art studies (wartime) Museum collections: Vietnam Fine Arts Museum

My Family 2003 | 100 x 120 cm Lacquer, dyes, egg shell and gold leaf on board

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The structuring of his perspectives is reduced to a minimum. Slanting figures with contorted limbs stretched to emphasize behaviour as opposed to movement are fused together in perfect harmony. These qualities of Thanh Chuongs art qualify the truth that his stylistic inspiration lies in traditional folk art. Artists in pursuit of quick profit have also reproduced the style that he developed and that has become his personal hallmark. In reality, Thanh Chuong has been open about his art, whose nature lies in the bonds of family and society, highlighting his overall concerns about culture and artistic expression. Thanh Chuongs journey has been long and arduous. Primarily a painter of figures, he found joy in portraiture. By the early 1990s, he started stylizing his figures and his shapes were reduced to clusters of lines, which he would then reassemble into fresh compositions. Thanh Chuong paints primarily on lacquer boards or do paper - interesting media that inherently reflect the twodimensional space typical of oriental picture making. The expressive nature of the surface -- whether the stillness of do paper or the profundity and gloss of black or vermilion lacquer board - imply a space of their own, beckoning the artist to add his final touch. It is said that Thanh Chuong hardly needs to search for inspiration because his world is embellished by icons of beauty, whether the gracefully curved roofs of communal houses or voluptuous Quan Ho songs, the serene Buddhas or the wittiness that exudes from the engravings on village communal houses. He views them all with a contemporary eye and brings them into the present. He imbues his paintings with rustic and rural aesthetics, while never abandoning the sophistication of contemporary urban life.

Stamp, 2001 International Year of Volunteers United Nations

Love 1999 | 100 x 100 cm Lacquer and dyes on board

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Trinh Tuan

Trinh Tuan was born in Hanoi and attended the Industrial Arts College from where he graduated in 1984. He received his Masters degree in Art from the Hanoi Fine Arts University in 2000. Trinh Tuan has been an unflagging proponent of lacquer painting since he started his artistic practice in the early 1990s. He is a modest and sensitive artist who is closely connected to Hanois art movement. Constantly intent on challenging the barriers placed between life and art, Trinh Tuan has come to art after a long journey. Trinh Tuans early works recall a stream of idealized imagery. However, he could hardly assert individual claim over these pleasing images. Though his art offered commentary on the formal qualities of lacquer painting, they were not infused with a personality that satisfied the artist. By the mid-1990s, Trinh Tuans aesthetic evolved to depict images that were bold and assertive. His compositions reflect the desolation of Tay Nguyens forests and the stillness of Hanoi buildings and streets. Whether composed in pairs or by themselves, Trinh Tuans shadowy figures evoke loneliness and solitude. These are certainly not personal expressions by the artist. But instead the luxurious tones and blended colours describe a glimmering moon, curtains of trees or waves of roofs on a background of striated space, all suggestive of absolute silence. The primordial calm of Trinh Tuans work conveys a radical message - the artist wants the viewer to scrutinize every detail, every corner of the painting as a realization of the irrational and unreal experiences of daily life.

b. 1961 Master of Fine Arts Museum collections: National Art Gallery, Malaysia

A Regrettable Loss 1997-2000 | 80 x 100 cm Lacquer, dyes, silver and gold leaf on board

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Trinh Tuans advancement to expressionism fuses his geometric figures and forms to float on lacquer surfaces that glow with traditional pigments. For Trinh Tuan, each painting reveals a story and as a body of work the paintings resemble an epic. As his paintings evolve over the years, the artist displays a continuing creativity that is highly charged but remains uninterrupted. Trinh Tuan has blossomed into a sophisticated artist who possesses a refined lacquer technique that requires meticulous rendering. Through his aesthetic, Trinh Tuan elevates a certain anxiety that concerns itself with the values of mankind and society. Lacquer painting, unlike oil painting, is a refined oriental tradition. In Vietnam, the art has been further developed, resulting in a unique artistic discipline that has become closely associated with Vietnamese modern art. Trinh Tuan is classified amongst the master lacquer painters. His association with the medium is both personal and professional. Trinh Tuans experiments with techniques have resulted in a confidence that has endowed him with a freedom of expression that transcends the usual progress of a painting. From the impromptu inspiration that he uncovers during the pumicing process to the continuous array of colours and detail that he creates on the surface, Trinh Tuan handles the complexity of lacquer painting and shapes his forms with masterly coordination. These qualities mirror his disciplined personality and are present in all of his paintings regardless of format. The calm, deliberate qualities of his compositions and the tactile surfaces are filled with inchoate emotion, waiting to be addressed. Trinh Tuans meditative paintings have added a lyrical note to the rich heritage of Vietnamese lacquer painting.

Adam and Eve 2002 | 80 x 80 cm Lacquer, dyes, egg shell, silver and gold leaf on board

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Truong Tan

In Vietnams conservative cultural landscape, Truong Tans art and persona rivet the attention. Acutely balancing personality and aesthetic, Truong Tan has chosen to openly address an ethical position related to the way his homosexuality has affected his art and his career. To understand why Truong Tan stands alone as an artist with a very particular vision, we need to know his personal history and the wellsprings of his art. Truong Tan graduated from the Hanoi Fine Arts University in 1989. His initial career as a professor of drawing at this institution came to an end largely as a result of his challenging art that disturbed the traditional assumptions of Vietnamese artists. Totally rejecting the academic style of presentation that was popularly adopted by most artists, Truong Tan employed a loose style that not only openly expressed his homosexuality but also did not accord with any familiar school of expression and sat uneasily within a politically aware society. The ensuing confusion highlighted the different pressing ethical issues concerning what should be classified as politically correct art. This situation led to Truong Tans move in 1997 to Paris, where the essence of his art would not be viewed as morally wrong. The success Truong Tan enjoyed on the international art scene has been sweet. However, his intimate connection to his homeland and strong sense of identity drew him back to Hanoi, where he now lives and continues to work despite the intolerance of the cultural bureaucracy.

b. 1963 Bachelor of Fine Arts Museum collections: Singapore Art Museum Queensland Art Gallery, Australia

Why Are You Standing On My Foot? 1996 | 52 x 70 cm Chinese ink and acrylic on do paper

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For Truong Tan, the strength of art issues directly from what he feels and sees in his mind. An image-maker with a rare sense of space and concern for the whole composition, rather than a creator of abstract sensibility, Truong Tan enjoys working with a variety of media. His iconic drawing style relates directly to his own sexuality. The freedom that he yields with his brush had already been evident in his early realistic and expressionist paintings. While some might be taken aback by his sexually explicit imagery, the nakedness exemplifies a shift in confidence and the maturity of Truong Tans art. There is nothing erotic about his images of men with oversized genitals. Another disruption his work addresses is the relationship between sexual agency and socio-political conceptions of gender. Despite the critical distance in his work, in many ways it seeks to engender love. The continuity of these tensions is best expressed through Truong Tans interpretations utilizing traditional art disciplines like lacquer painting. Nevertheless, in reality Truong Tans art relates the vigour and beauty of the bodys expressive power. Each line and smear on the canvas stem from a warm and kind heart that draws the viewer closer to the emotion of the artist, regardless of his subjects. The ease and continuity with which Truong Tan draws and paints and the comfort in which he handles a variety of materials is a clear reflection of the freedom of expression that he enjoys. Additionally, the artist is renowned for the performance art and new media art that he helped to pioneer in Hanoi. He is equally articulate in his performance art. He never fails to amaze even his harshest critics with his ability to successfully express himself with even the simplest gesture of his hands. Truong Tan has an endless thirst for freedom and the desire to intimately express the issues that have affected and molded his life -- the difficult childhood, his social position. These concerns with the dynamic of colour - its oppositions, contraries and brilliance -- continue to absorb Truong Tan, affording him the greatest opportunity of expression.

Angels 2001 | 100 x 100 cm Lacquer, dyes and gold leaf on board

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IMPRESSIONS AND EXPRESSIONS - VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY PAINTING

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Van Duong Thanh

When listening to the story of Van Duong Thanhs childhood, one becomes for a moment unseeing. That moment of concentration transports one out of the comfort of the present to a past filled with loneliness and sadness. Van Duong Thanh was born in Phu Yen province in central Vietnam into a family of rural intellectuals. Her father was deputy chief of the province. The death of her father when she was nine years old interrupted the flow of her childhood dreams, for it was her father who had recognized her artistic talent and encouraged her to study art at the age of seven. Van Duong Thanhs talent did not pass unnoticed, for she was selected to study at the Fine Arts College when she was eleven years old and studied there for twelve years. Because of the horror of war, which also caused the college to be moved from Hanoi to the countryside, much of her youth was transient, being shuttled around from village to village. Separated from her family at the start of the war, she lived a life of poverty with families of farmers who often offered her refuge. With the fear of death always lurking in the shadows, it was Van Duong Thanhs perseverance towards a dream of the future and life as an artist that sustained her. Van Duong Thanhs paintings are best characterized by a quiet eloquence and contemplative spirit that is expressive of her own personality. The artist paints many subjects comfortably in a variety of media. While a student, she had adopted a personal artistic vocabulary, totally independent of any academic influences.

b. 1951 Bachelor of Fine Arts Museum collections: Vietnam Fine Arts Museum Singapore Art Museum Staffanstorp Art Hall, Sweden

Bathing In The Rain 2003 | 45 x 59 cm Acrylic on silk

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The ease with which she engages herself when painting and her limpid brushstrokes are lyrical with expressionism. But her paintings always sing a lonely song. Although her landscapes and scenes of Hanoi glow with colour and are rich with flowers and trees, these are images imbued with frailty, both visually and emotionally. An indefatigable painter, Van Duong Thanh paints from a memory that has been rooted in the hope of a world far away from bombs and death. The reverie associated with her landscapes or sensuous nudes implies a romantic clich_ of her own desires and her loneliness. But it is her female voice that resonates through her art. The sensations associated with her brushstrokes and colours are mixed with an intuition that is easily read. Her ability to isolate the nature of emotion is particularly well documented through her female forms. The sensuality and grace of her usually voluptuous figures are further highlighted by her ability to paint on silk - a material that allows the pigment to meld gently and that immediately reflects the fragile nature of Van Duong Thanh and her compositions. Van Duong Thanh readily credits her academic background for her historical knowledge of art. But her greatest teacher was her friend, the icon of Vietnamese modern art, Bui Xuan Phai, who inspired her with his deep love of art, rich humanism and search for the ideal. A painting style that blends both Impressionism and Expressionism was cultivated into her own personal style. Van Duong Thanh adds value to her already rich visual world with reminiscences of the past; memories of village life, and images of the Hanoi of her youth. These are religious icons that provide the means for us to visualize what was her private world. Van Duong Thanh lives and works in both Sweden and Vietnam.

Portrait of Bui Xuan Phai, 1988 Charcoal on paper 26 x 36 cm

Golden Autumn 2004 | 140 x 160 cm Oil and acrylic on canvas

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Index

Abstractionism, abstract : 10, 16, 18, 28, 42, 44, 54, 58, 60, 62, 64, 68, 80 America, American, US : 7, 9, 10 Anacardiaceae : 22 Annam : 6, 9 Ao dai : 17, 54 APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) : 19 Apsara : 14, 15 Arts Association, see Vietnam Fine Arts Association ASEAN : 19, 20, 21 ASEAN Art Awards : 20 Avant-garde :13, 54 Bang Sy Truc : 5 Buddhism, Buddhist : 6, 13, 14, 15, 30, 36 Bui Quoc Chi : 5 Bui Xuan Phai : 6, 9, 10, 12, 16, 17, 21, 66, 84 Cambodia : 6 Censorship : 18, 21 Champa : 6 China, Chinese : 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 19, 22, 48, 50, 52, 78 Chinese ink : 50, 52, 78 Cinnabar : 23 Classicism : 10 Cochin-China : 6 Communism, communist : 10, 20, 22, 54 Confucianism, Confucian : 6, 7, 12, 13 Cong Kim Hoa : 15, 26-29 Cong Quoc Ha : 26 Cubism, cubist : 15, 16, 70 Danang : 7 Dang Ngoc Bach : 26 Dang Xuan Hoa : 11, 12, 30-33, 42 Dinh Quan : 14, 15, 34-37 Dinh Trong Khang : 38 Dinh Y Nhi : 17, 38-41 Do paper : 13, 14, 72, 78 Doi moi (renovation) : 5, 11, 13, 15, 19 Dong Ho : 70 Dong Son : 6, 7, 60 Duc Minh collection : 13 Duong Bich Lien : 10

Duong Tuong : 30 Duplication, duplicate : 10, 21 Dutch : 7, 9 cole des Beaux-Arts dIndochine : 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 17 Eggshell : 13, 23, 24, 70, 76 Europe, European : 7, 8, 10, 11, 16, 56 Expressionism, expressionist : 9, 10, 16, 18, 76, 80, 84 France, French : 6, 7, 9, 66 Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan : 8, 19, 46 Gang of Five : 11, 12, 13, 42 Gia Dinh College : 54, 58 Gluta laccifera, see Melanorrhoea l. Gold leaf : 13, 14, 23, 25, 26, 28, 34, 36, 70, 74, 76, 80 Gouache : 8, 10, 30, 38, 40, 52, 68 Ha Tri Hieu : 11,12, 42 Haiphong : 7, 34 Hanoi : 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 26, 30, 34, 38, 40, 42, 46, 50, 54, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70, 74, 78, 80, 82, 84 Hanoi Industrial Fine Arts College : 11, 15, 38, 40, 46 Ho Chi Minh : 7, 10 Ho Chi Minh City : 16, 19, 21, 46, 54 Homosexuality : 18, 78 Hong Kong : 11 Hong Viet Dung : 11, 13, 42-45 Hue: 7, 8, 28, 44, 64, 66 Impressionism, Impressionist : 8, 10, 16, 56, 66, 68, 84 Indochina, Indochinese : 6, 7 Indonesia : 7, 9 Japan, Japanese : 8, 9, 19, 46, 56 Jones, Adrian : 5 Kraevskaia, Natalia : 16 Lacquer : 5, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 18, 22-25, 26, 28, 34, 36, 48, 70, 72, 74, 76, 80 Lacquer painting : 5, 8, 14, 15, 18, 22, 23, 26, 28, 36, 74, 76, 80 Lao : 6 Le Quang Ha : 18, 20, 46-49 Le Thanh Son : 66 Le Van Mien : 7 Luong Xuan Doan : 10, 13, 16, 50-53 Luong Xuan Nhi : 52

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Malaysia, Malaya : 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 19, 20, 26, 30, 34, 38, 50, 74 Matisse, Henri : 52 Melanorrhoea laccifera : 22 Mo Yan : 48 Monet, Claude : 66 Nanyang Academy of Art : 9 National Art Gallery, Malaysia : 5, 11, 12, 20, 26, 30, 34, 38, 50, 74 Naziree, Shireen : 5, 15 Nguyen Gia Tri : 13, 14 Nguyen Phan Chanh : 8 Nguyen Quan :7, 12, 14, 30 Nguyen Sang : 6, 10 Nguyen Thanh Binh :17, 54-57 Nguyen Thanh Chuong, see Thanh Chuong Nguyen Thanh Minh : 8, 9 Nguyen Trung : 5, 16, 58-61 Nguyen Tu Nghiem : 10, 16, 70 Nguyen Viet Hai : 30, 44 Nguyen Xuan Tiep : 12, 13, 14 North Vietnam : 9, 10 Official art : 10 Pagoda : 10, 14, 34 Paris : 7, 8, 11, 18, 60, 66, 78 Pham An Hai : 5, 16, 20, 62-65 Pham Hau : 14 Pham Luan : 16, 66-69 Pham Quang Vinh : 11, 42 Phan Cam Thuong : 5, 10, 16 Philippines : 6, 9 Picasso, Pablo : 32, 70 Propaganda (art) : 9 Quan Ho : 72 Queensland Art Gallery, Australia : 7, 14, 19, 78 Rawanchaikul, Toshiko : 8 Realism : 10, 11, 17, 18, 48, 50, 68 Red River Gallery : 12 Rhus succedanea : 22 Romanticism, romantic : 16, 17, 46, 48 Saigon, see Ho Chi Minh City Silk painting : 7, 8 Silver leaf : 23, 24, 26, 74, 76

Silver powder : 23, 24, 25, 34, 36 Singapore : 9, 19 Singapore Art Museum : 20, 30, 34, 38, 46, 58, 78, 82 Social-realist art, social-realism : 10 Son, see lacquer South Vietnam : 58 Soviet Union : 10 Staffanstorp Art Hall : 82 Sweden : 17, 82, 84 Taoism, Taoist : 6, 13 Tardieu, Victor : 7, 8, 14 Tay Nguyen : 74 Taylor, Nora : 7 Thailand : 6 Thanh Chuong : 15, 16, 70-73 To Ngoc Van : 9 Tonkin : 6 Toxicodendron succedanea, see Rhus s. Tran Luong : 11, 42 Tran Van Can : 14 Trienniale : 14, 19 Trinh Huu Ngoc : 66 Trinh Tuan : 5, 15, 23, 26, 74-77 Truong Son : 50 Truong Tan : 18, 19, 78-81 Van Duong Thanh : 17, 18, 82-85 Van Gogh, Vincent : 11 Viet Minh : 9 Vietnam College of Fine Arts : 9 Vietnam Fine Arts Association : 9 Vietnam Fine Arts Museum : 10, 30, 34, 38, 42, 50, 58, 70, 82 Watercolours : 52 Wei Hui : 48 Witness Collection : 8 World Trade Center : 60 Xuyen paper : 52 Zen : 42

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