Seven days of the week - VCAD - Vietnam Contemporary Art Database

Seven days of the week

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Installation view of exhibition "Rhyming Gestures", Nguyen Art Foundation, 2023.

Info

ARTIST

Nguyễn Minh Thành

YEAR

1995

CATEGORY

Installation Art, New Painting

TECHNIQUES

SIZE

50 × 150 (cm)

MEDIUM

Dó paper, Watercolor

Installation of seven painting scrolls, mixed media (Ink and watercolor on Dó paper, gauze). Dimension 150 x 50 cm each.

Description

These early paintings on handmade dzo paper by Nguyễn Minh Thành speak to the artist’s dominant theme: portraiture. Long known in the art community for his thoughtful, introspective musings of the self, Thành intuitively uses his body as the model for the “everyday man”, painting and placing various characters in the midst of imaginary sceneries that juxtapose elements of traditional and modern Vietnamese life. The artist continually returns to his early recollections, weaving in unexpected visuals that symbolize a childhood spent in the countryside – a bird cage, a rice basket, flowers, traditional dresses etc. Considering his portrait works as part of a “historical process of physical and mental evolution”, Thành paints himself in the physical bodies of others, in an attempt to search for the true meaning of existence. Whether male or female, as a businessman, a little boy or the artist’s own mother, Thành’s essence seeps deeply into the visualization of his subjects, gently blurring boundaries of genders and classes, where past, present and future merge into one in a timeless manner.

Source: Nguyen Art Foundation.

Collection of Nguyen Art Foundation

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

https://nguyenartfoundation.com/artwork/seven-days-of-the-week/

2023

Rhyming Gestures

Group exhibition, Nguyen Art Foundation, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam