(This interview, on Trung’s artistic experiences in lacquer painting and his thoughts on his artistic journey, was commissioned for the book and the exhibition “Imaginary Land”) Lacquer painting – Why? Q: Why did you decide to study fine art at an university? VDT: I could not remember why I decided to study fine art. I just remember that I look several entrance examinations but I only passed the one of the University of Applied Art in Hanoi. Then, I studied there. Q: So I understand you were not much interested in or fond of painting as a child. Were you influenced by anyone in your family? VDT: No, not at all. In my family, there has never been any connection to art. Since childhood, I…

To be able to appreciate how the career of artist Ly Hung Anh started is not easy at all. We have talked together many times. Attending his first solo exhibition in a small street gallery owned by an artist-friend, I was impressed by his black and white paintings. One in particular was that of a sick man lying on a bed. The patient seemed to be suspended as time and air stood still. The patient’s eyes are tired and blurred. It is a glimpse of his destiny, frozen in the moment. This was the strength of Ly Hung Anh’s work. An artist might spend a lot of time just studying people who live close to him until he reaches a certain moment when he starts…

By Hoai Van (From the booklet Nguyen Dinh Dung’s paintings) Dinh Dung is a new phenomenon in the art circle. At the exhibition about Hanoi in May 1988, some of his pictures were admired by the public and the Đoàn Kếtmagazine carried an article about him. I still have a good impression after contemplating his picture entitled “Stage”, first displayed here. Now, the Vietnam House sets asides for him a large room with 40 silk paintings. Here in Paris such big number of pictures by a single painter from Vietnam is something unsual and worthwhile! What is regrettable is that the space is not large enough for each picture for the viewers to see. This does not mean that the exhibition has not achieved expected results. The…

Le Thua Tien is an artist whose life and work is steeped in memory. Born in the ancient capital of Hue, a land of royal majestic history ravaged by time and war, Tien's wor is a ponderance of remembrance past. Introspective by nature, Tien's works are studies of memory and contemplation. Though his works in very diverse mediums, including painting, installation, sculpture and community based art projects, all of the artists' creations are deeply spiritual and emit a sense of devine. Tien's most recent works are mixed media and lacquer, in which the artist uses a traditional Vietnamese medium with a rich historical past in very new and innovative ways. Utilizing found objects, marble dust, silver leaf, incense sticks, copper, bronze, the artist gives the…

is an extraordinary female artist who paints personal perceptions including imagery of family members and objects around her. Dang Thao Ngoc’s works of art metaphorically represent a young women’s view of the world and her life experiences. Ngoc uses vivid oil colors on canvas as she captures your imagination leaving room for interpretation by the viewer. Dang Thao Ngoc’s imagery expresses traditional Vietnamese motifs as well as contemporary themes. The juxtaposition of traditional and modern influences is visually bold and thought provoking. Often, her themes represent the exuberance of youth and wisdom that contrasts with ideas of experience and age. The provocative subjects of Dang Thao Ngoc’s works allow the viewer to imagine and arrive at their own conclusions about the messages she is trying…

Hoang Hong Cam's paintings have their own characteristics, very special: sometimes happiness, sometimes depression, sometimes installation and sometimes improvisation. Is the contradiction in the work originating from the soul of a person who is much concerned, contemplated and easily touched by the changes of everything? Hoang Hong Cam did not step right into the fine-arts at first. He started from the play, the ten-year-old boy joined by accident into competitions and matriculated at the same time the two troupes but he has refused all and then embarked on the world of pictures and colors. However, the artist’s blood up to now has not lost.  Not acting on stage, he acted in real life, just for fun for a while, to any friend who was very close to him, just like the way he paints to repay the beloved ones. This characteristic made Hoang Hong Cam’s paintings and lifestyle become lovely idyllic.…

Phan Cam Thuong (1957), first studied and since many years teaches Art History at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hanoi; exhibited among others in New York, Vermont, France, Singapore and Hong Kong; lives in the Buddhist But Tap Pagoda (14th century) on which he wrote an art historic study, one among many other art historic books. Except from making wood block prints he is a painter and a calligrapher. During the war he lived like many of his contemporaries at the countryside. The old folk art and the village life inspire him until today: his woodblock prints show a dance, a funeral, a procession and all kind off Buddhist rituals. Since the revival of Buddhist religion in the early nineties many artists like Thuong…

One of Vietnam’s best known sculptors, 77-year-old Le Cong Thanh creates striking images of the female form. “I sculpt statues of women because a woman’s sexuality and body allow me to better understand the mysterious truth of life,” explains Mr. Thanh. “Painting is a means of expression, as is a story’s theme. All things have meaning, but there is only one purpose, the pursuit of beauty. While it strikes me that understanding the meaning behind Mr. Thanh’s sensuous sculptures requires almost as much work as creating them, their beauty is easy to grasp. He celebrates female fertility without embarrassment or inhibitions. But where does his inspiration stem from? Is he motivated by Cham sculptures or Indian temple art? Obviously, Vietnam’s folk culture has greatly influenced…

A pioneer in combining folklore with contemporary fine art Painter Nguyen Tu Nghiem was of the first generation painters in Vietnam’s revolutionary fine arts. He was famous for painting lacquer, oil-on-canvas and pigments. Lan Anh reports. Nghiem was born on October 20, 1922, in Nam Dan district, Nghe An province. In 1941, he studied at the Indochina Fine Arts College together with painter Bui Xuan Phai, who was famous for paintings of Hanoi’s Old Quarter. In his third year, Nghiem was taught by well-known painter To Ngoc Van who instructed him in fine arts, painting techniques and oil-on-canvas painting. Dr. Nguyen Do Bao, former Chairman of the Vietnam Fine Arts Association, said: “Painter Nguyen Tu Nghiem quickly caught up with contemporary art. While in the…

By Nguyen Quan                                                         (Ho Chi Minh City, October, 2003)  Le Cong Thanh was part of the emeritus of South Vietnam. A graduate of the Hanoi Art School in 1962 and having studied abroad, this young sculptor artist represented, without doubt, hope for the new revolutionary sculpture movement. From his very first exhibits in the early 1970s and despite his young age, Le Cong Thanh was deemed an icon and treated like an elder of the village. Indeed Le Cong Thanh realized very early on how to  seize and appropriate himself all that everyone was aspiring to under the…

from the window of her house at the Red River Bank (Assoc. Dr. Nguyen Thi Minh Thai) Artist Vu Bich Thuy is a woman who only paints through her own views from the windowsill at the Red Riverbank in Hanoi and sees the whole world in endless style. The first solo exhibition was named by herself in a very simply but very sexy way “Beyond the Windowsill”. Dozens of paintings were presented harmoniously in this exhibition, both as a result of her creative process and as a naturally denouncing the status of Thuy's painting, as if she is being possessed… “Beyond the Windowsill”, it turned out to be Thuy wanted to see, to wish for delusion, to start the external view from within.  Until the age of fifty, Thuy did not know why, she suddenly flashed her mind full of thoughtful thoughts, so, it seemed all that Thuy saw outside the…

Dang Xuan Hoa expresses emotions through figures and shapes as his compositions appear to be perfect in themselves. His harmony of colours has instant appeal with subtle aesthetics. His work is in demand all over the world and has been auctioned and exhibited across the globe from New York to Hong Kong to London. Born in 1959, Dang Xuan Hoa graduated from the Vietnam University of Fine Arts in 1983. In his recent paintings, Dang Xuan Hoa remains true to himself, and objects are his main subjects. They are painted in a way to capture their relationship to the world around them. These subjects are familiar in the life of the painter. As Dang Xuan Hoa says, they can be found everywhere arounf me and in…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD9_tPn2Lxo PS. NetViet TV - Kênh truyền hình VTC 10 NETVIET Phát sóng liên tục 24h/7 bằng tiếnAg Anh và tiếng Việt, gồm 3 phiên bản phù hợp với múi giờ của châu Á, châu ÂU và châu Mỹ, các bản tin của kênh VTC10- NETVIET vẽ lên bức tranh toàn diện nhất về các sự kiện văn hóa, kinh tế, và xã hội trong và ngoài nước.

In Marianne Smolska’s new series entitled Phù Du (Ephemeral), delicate monochrome motifs of skulls, wilted flowers, brambles, roots and chrysalises intertwine with embroidery on handmade Lao and Vietnamese paper. Her solo exhibition is ongoing at the Đông Phong Gallery at 3 Lý Đạo Thành Street, Hà Nội. Inspired by David Bowie’s death, this ballpoint series is a reflection on the frailness of life, the passing of time, the inescapable aging of the body and the wounds of bereavement that have to be tended, nursed and even stitched up. The bare threads, fragile lifelines, webs or seams, sometimes caught in brambles, seem to seek to capture a pattern before it disappears. And when they are simply stretched or suspended, these strands seem to weave links between…

Mona Lisa is an impressive name for  the artist Bui Thanh Tam’s first personal exhibition shown in Viet Art Centre, 42 Yet Kieu, Hanoi. The exhibition space is filled with humorous smiles from participants’ corner of mouth. Under “peaceful view” of the artist, Mona Lisa in the classic Renaissance contributes happy grins of water puppets which are typical of Vietnam. 1.    Mona Lisa exhibition is the achievement of a year’s restless composition of Bui Thanh Tam. Born in 1979, he is a young artist at both age and seniority. Despite being graduated from the University of fine arts, Vietnam in 2009, he has taken impressive steps on the art road. He creates separate marks for his style shaped by creative sense of humor but audacity…

Bui Quang Khiem’s paintings, using Chinese ink on rice paper, reflect on the woman as artist, and more broadly on the enigmatic beauty of the female form. Along with the paintings will be shown a short film exposing the artist at work, guided onward by the mysterious twists of his art.   Bui Quang Khiem, inspired by traditional calligraphic methods, has over the past ten years, developed his own techniques and style which play freely with the diffusion of water in very fine rice paper. His precise brush strokes connect with ancestral calligraphic arts which require in-the-moment concentration for the spirit to transmit its essence dynamically to the brush and convey the conceived line to paper. What is fascinating about his paintings is their simultaneous…

By Phoebe Scott Monuments are strange comforts. For a structure to be graced with the status of a ‘monument’ implies a kind of publicly--recognised significance. This significance could be intentional, as in the case where a building is created as an act of public memory: what the art historian Alois Riegl called a “deliberate monument” in his seminal essay on monumentality [1]. Alternatively, the monument can be made by history: those structures that survive the passage of time and seem to encapsulate the values of the past in physical form. But both types of monument are linked by a sense of loss. While they appear to give solidity, permanence and tangible bulk to our cherished ideals and our collective past, by their very existence, monuments…

Vietnamese artist and curator Le Quoc Viet is a modern practitioner burdened by an old soul. His works navigate between past and present Vietnam, interrogating the tumultuous history of his native country, particularly through the medium of wood block prints. Vietnamese artist Le Quoc Viet largely works within the traditional graphic arts of printmaking. His medium of choice is handmade wood blocks, amongst the oldest of traditional print-making techniques. Whilst European audiences may associate wood block printing with masters of this technique such as Albrecht Dürer or the artists of Japanese ukiyo-e, Viet’s works draw from the rich intersection between printing and text in Vietnamese culture. Born in 1972 in Ha Tay, Le Quoc Viet is part of a younger generation of Vietnamese artists who…

That eggzactly perfectly minute art gallery has come up with the goods yet again. Mr Long and his accomplices have done what most commercial galleries refuse to do in this precarious art purchasing era… they’ve handed the hanging space to youth. Two young artists to be eggzact. One, 25 year old Nguyen Dinh Son, is a secondary school teacher in Hanoi. The other, 22 year old Do Trong Quy, is a fourth year student at the local Fine Arts University who has ambitions to do a master’s degree in Germany. The two met when they hung work at a Young Artists’ shindig in 2015 and they’ve shared a studio ever since Being young, emerging and no doubt callow – as talented youth must be –…

Opening: Wed 31 Aug 2016, 5 pm Exhibition: 31 Aug – 04 Sep 2016 Vietnam Fine Arts Museum, #66 Nguyen Thai Hoc street. Ly Hung Anh, Dang Xuan Truong and Luong Duc Hung – An artist, a photographer and a sculptor – will together display their latest artworks in the exhibition “3 Cognitive”, from 31 August to 4 September at Vietnam Fine Art Museum. Cognitive vibration has been changed its form in process of searching itself every moment. Life is going on as if pulling about, as if to abandon one’s body in order to go back to its original essence. You are cordially invited to the Exhibition “3 Cognitive” at 5p.m on Wednesday 31 August, at Vietnam Fine Art Museum. (From Ly Hung Anh,…

Bowlful of Greatjoy @ Dong Phong It’s that time of the lunar year when the household deities Pham Lang, Trong Cao and Thi Nhi leave their duties in everyones house and surrounds and for a few days travel up to the kingdom of The Jade King to report about the people in their various households and pray for their prosperity in the new year. The deities are still very old fahioned about transport in this technological age and take their journey to the kingdom on the back of golden carp. Their various households are anxious for their coming prosperity so soon after they burn effigies of the deities and the smoke rises to the heavens full of prayers and thankyous, they release a golden carp…

Lacquer magic by Vu Duc Trung Once again the intimate and super welcoming gallery DONG PHONG @ 3 Ly Dao Thanh has grabbed my total attention with another of the lacquer maestro’s exhibitions of extra special artworks. Click here for an overview of his superb show at the same gallery last year when his round pieces were reminiscent of delicate and mystical waterscapes or reflections in still ponds… as exampled below: ……and exampled from the works from 2012 which was in the more traditional rectangular shape Vu Duc Trung’s lacquers have always invited the viewer, particularly me, to move beneath the surfaces and discover what lies beyond or beneath and in his latest exhibition of parallel works from 2012 to 2015 the artist allows visages…

KVT appreciates the work of an up and coming talent plus the world’s best gelato in Ly Dao Thanh. It’s no secret that the intimate Dong Phong Gallery tucked away in quiet and gentrified Ly Dao Thanh Street is one of my favorite art spaces. It may be a teensy space but its exhibitions are always excellently presented. If you are an amateur or serious collector of excellent, contemporary Vietnamese art then you’d be advised to get to know the personnel at Dong Phong and be amazed at the Dong Phong collection at their private Gallery. What I really appreciate about Dong Phong is their occasional exhibitions of the work of unknown or emerging or up-and-coming artists. Until mid December they feature 30-ish freelance artist…

      KVT still doing cart wheels around Dong Phong   They say that Nguyen Dinh Hoang Viet is likely to be the NEXT BIG THING in Vietnamese art so here’s a reprise of some of his affordable $100 pieces for sale at Dong Phong @ 3 Ly Dao Thanh St…..not far from the Metropole and the Press Club.   In the early years of this century an excellent little gallery called Suffusive was hidden away in Bao Khanh St and it used to highlight the work of recent young art schoolgraduates. It was a fabulous place to pick up affordable art works before the signatures on them became famous. I still kick myself for not grabbing a handful of ceramic pigs by now…

KVT and some visual art that made him do a couple of handstands, back springs and even yodel with joy. Lately I’ve been getting a bit despondent about the state of arty things in the city. I was just climbing out of my heat induced lethargy and ennui to write a few nice words about the Monks and Nuns on the Show at Module 7 and trying to get enough enthusiasm for a hot day ramble to the suburbs to see how Ha Tri Hieu was re-inventing himself at Art Vietnam when I got waylaid at the delectable Affordable Art Show at the teeny but delectable Dong Phong art room…an offshoot of the main Dong Phong Gallery…and not far from the Press Club in Ly…