The York
Square Gallery is proud to present an international exhibit of artworks by six
contemporary painters of Vietnam: Nguyen Tan Duc, Vu Dung, Bui Mai Hien, Bach
Nguyen, Bui Suoi Hoa, and Dao Anh Khan. This show is guest curated by Ms. Bach
Nguyen, culinary artist, and former restaurateur of Chez Bach of Branford
and Westport, CT, and Washington D.C.
In Vietnam, oil painting is a recent art form, dating back only to the early French colonization in the 1800’s; the first formal classes began in Hanoi in 1886. Ceramics, lacquer panels, and wood-block prints, by contrast, date back several millennia. The Ecole Beaux Arts de l’Indochine opened in 1925, where the modern European movements of Fauve, Cubism, and Surrealism sought to replace traditional Chinese arts.
After the Japanese occupation, however, such artistic rivalries were replaced by real conflict in the perception of art : traditional aesthetic painting and impressionism both against the socialist dogma that "social statement is the only valid purpose of art." For fifteen years after 1975, Social Realism was the only permitted art form, and nationalist style was limited to village landscape and scenes of domestic and peasant virtues.
Contemporary Vietnamese painting
still bears the reflections of these past movements. "I am always looking
for ways," says Bui Mai Hien, "to use old tradition to express
contemporary art, searching for myself through the work." The sensations
in each of these pieces, done in oils or lacquer, now reveal each artist’s
individual style, drawn from personal expression. Says Dao Anh Khan, "I
am searching for the limitlessness of the universe, so that I feel in my heart
that I am a long traveler. That is where
I find humanity is larger than myself."
Each
of the artists shown here is represented in museum collections around the world
and in their own country. Each, except Bach Nguyen, is a member of the Vietnam
Association of Plastic Arts Workers, a government sponsoring agency. Their work
has been exhibited in Paris, Beijing,
Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Houston,
New London CT, and Washington DC. "If I have
the responsibility of
sharing my emotions with the community and society, in a world between
ancient
and modern, a world without boundaries," says Vu Dung, "then
I want to use my art as
a way to share my feelings about human suffering
and the thirst for love and freedom..."
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