-
Biography:
- 1972 Born in Hanoi
- 1995 Graduated from Hanoi
Industrial Fine Art College
- Member of the Viet Nam Fine Art
Association
- Member of the young Artist Club
Vietnam Fine Art Association
- Exhibitions
- 1995, 1998, 2003 Hanoi
Fine Art Exhibitions
- 2001, 2005 The Club of
young Vietnam Artist, exhibitions at Exhibition House Hanoi
- 2000 Vietnam Fine Art
Exhibition in Singapore
- 2000, 2001 Joint
Exhibition in China
- 2003 Joint Exhibition at
Dragon gallery
- 2003 Solo Exhibition of
Lacquer " My Mother Land" at Exhibition House Hanoi
- 2003 Exhibition the club
of young Vietnamese Artists "Doi Dien" at Exhibition
House
- 2006 Participation in Art
Auction of Operation Smile in HCM
- 2006 Solo Exhibitions of
Lacquer "The Memories of Childhood" at Park Hyatt Saigon
organize by Ben Thanh Art & Frame and Galerie Nguyen
- Collection
- Private collection inside and
outside Vietnam
- Private collection of "Maison
du droit Vietnam - Francaise"
- Exhibition at "Maison du
droit Vietnam - Francaise"
- Private collection of
Francophonie
Tran
Dinh Khuong Artist
My childhood is streaked with memories
of the countryside. Perhaps I am so lucky with my fifteen years of
hearing, contemplating, meditating and creative work.
My recent pictures seem to be a small
path leading me back to my childhood and probably to other
people’s as well.
Feelings and emotions come to me in a
flash, I gather them up, spread them out and stir them as swiftly as their
sudden, unexpected arrival. I like to remain in control of the spontaneous
streaks that spill, the tight pumicing strokes, the motion in every fibre
of the egg shells and also to preserve intact the naivety, plainness and
freshness of the personages in my pictures.
For me, the medium is vital to an
artist, just like the half of his life. So I must have a perfect knowledge
of it and try to be in possession of its secret so as to better realize my
artistic work.
Art sets very high standards but how to
meet its requirements depends on the choice of an individual artist.For my
part, feelings and emotions simply emerge from life.In a man’s
existence,childhood is the years.In which we receive the largest part of
feelings and emotions, thus let us preserve them.And I beg to offer what I
have created to art lovers.
THE VILLAGE DREAMER
Not trained art critic, I am a seasoned
lover of beauty.And in Tran Dinh Khuong’s magnificent oils on lacquer, I
found a perfect rationale for a lifetime of aesthetic pursuit.
Viewing this exhibit is to repeat
Alice’s trip through her looking glass into a world of the author’s
imagination. In carroll’s novel, “The adventures of Alice in
Wonderland,”the young protagonist wanders through a milieu circumscribed
by unique characters, some frightening, some helpful, at least to the
author himself.
Like Alice, we find in Tran Dinh
Khuong’s work a distinctive world, this time amicrocosm of Vietnamese
village life in which young people fish and wash dishes in the river,
children play games, buffaloes romp, and rain falls softly on forest
leaves. Using the artist’s imagination and artistic gifts as our guide,
we can travel with Tran Dinh Khuong to the village and rediscover the joy
of childhood in which every experience is new, fresh and exciting.
There have been other villages in
literature and art, but unlike Alice’s “village” of strange
characters, the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts and the smilling Cheshire
Cat, or artist Marc Chagall’s Russian village where bridal couples float
in the air and clowns and roosters perform for the viewer, Khuong’s
village is calm, peaceful and idyllic. Its milieu is bucolic and its
colors, reflecting the green of the fields and the deep blue of the
rivers, invite the viewer to escape with the artist into a fantasia of
pleasure and oblivion, the secret world of the child where
responsibilities are few and enchanment reigns.
Tran Dinh Khuong accomplishes this feat
through his artist skills, the delicate and complex technique of applying
oil on lacquer, and his capacity to summon the past and give it a
universal vision that resonates with every person who has ever experienced
the joy-even if momentary-of childhood.
However, Tran Dinh Khuong knows from
adult experience that the world of the child is temporary and fleeting. In
the exhibit’s painting of a buffalo and a child with a kite, certain to
be come one day a masterpiece of technique and imagination, the artist
renders the soul of the Vietnamese in a single stroke. In the painting,
Khuong splits the personality of the Vietnamese people in two: in the
upper left hand corner, the gentle child, the village dreamer, twisted in
the tail of his kite, whirling upside down in the sky-or is it the
universe? – gifted, aristis, playful, without a care. And in the lower
right hand corner of the painting, a buffalo, ancient symbol of labor and
friendship,, the usually affectionate bufflalo now an angry one, his eye
staring fiercely at you, the viewer, communicating his fury, his powerful
bulk suggesting conquest over all his enemies.
The artist has made a statement that
transports us far from the peaceful village of fishing children, endless
games and serenity. He draws upon history to tell us that this world
reflects only one half of the Vietnamese soul, one half of its
experience. Throughout history, at war and under occupation, the
Vietnamese have also had to defend with their blood an extraordinary
universe, grounded in maternal love and lullabies, extended family and
loyal friends, gentle buffaloes, songs and games.
The artist is mindful that to present
only the one side of the Vietnamese personality is to deprive it of its
depth and strength, its tragedy and its heroism, its greatness and its
sorrow.
Like Lewis Carroll and Marc Chagall
before him, Tran Dinh Khuong’s artistic vision is not one dimensional.
His paintings span the stages of life, the nature of work and
relationships, peace and war. He is an urban painter, preoccupied with the
pastoral tradition of his youth, perhaps, as he says, “…from my visits
to the countryside with my father and brother when I was six…”
His preoccupation is our gift and Khuong
found his medium to express it in lacquer, “…something that reflects
the Vietnamese soul and identity the depth and intricacies of Vietnamese
people. I want to master it at any cost.”
Born in 1972 and graduated from the
Hanoi Institute of Industrial Arts in 1995, Tran Dinh Khuong quickly
emerged as an artist to watch in the Asian Art Scene. He has exhibited
widely and his works grace collections across continents.
He is only 34 years of age.
Saigon, September 2006
Libby Zinman - Schwartz
|
