My Daughter by Doan Hoang Lam

Space for Showering Flowers 02 by Nguyen The Hung

HA NOI (VNS)– The meeting hall inside the Danish Embassy in Ha Noi has turned into a display place for a selection of artwork by Vietnamese painters.

Nguyen Thi Tu Quyen's acrylic painting Holy Sunlight is among the nine works on display. Quyen paints several colours over each other and then scrapes off the layers, so the painting ends up looking like wood.

Born in the Central Highlands, the artist hopes to preserve her local culture through her work.

Her paintings and those that accompany them were selected from over 100 paintings across the country by the Danish Culture Development and Exchange Fund (CDEF)'s board members, including artist and curator Le Quang Dinh. The artists represented at the show are Nguyen Tran Cuong, Le Chi Hieu, Nguyen The Hung, Doan Hoang Lam, Pham Tran Quan, Nguyen Khanh Toan, Vu Duc Trung and Nguyen Thi Tu Quyen.

Lam has depicted his daughter in 20-30 paintings. One of them, 108cm by 86cm, is hanging on the wall behind the ambassador's working table.

"I think the painting restores a sense of youth to the room as I'm now getting older and older," the ambassador said, explaining why he chose the painting of the little girl to decorate his office.

Two other artworks, Flute and Forest II, are also on display at the ambassador's office. While Cuong's Flute is made from watercolour on paper and uses typical Vietnamese images of buffalo and banana trees, the lacquer painting Forest II by Trung is more imaginative.

"I don't want to name the painting. Viewers can feel my paintings in their own ways," said Trung.

The painting Space for Showering Flowers 02 by artist Hung is one of the most controversial works in the exhibit, according to Truong Uyen Ly, CDEF's culture development consultant.

Almost all the flowers in the painting are cut from pictures of real blooming flowers, which the artist cut and let fly on the flat surface of do paper.

"I want to create rain from flowers for this empty space of the painting. The little flowers fall down like rain and some remain the same while some are broken into pieces," said Hung.

The paintings also include patterned pillows, flowers and simple coloured dots floating in space.

"Contemporary art in Viet Nam is now going through an exciting period as the country is moving towards modernisation and globalization. After this exhibition, the paintings will be replaced with a new selection," said the Danish Ambassador John Nielsen at the exhibition's opening ceremony yesterday.

The exhibition, which runs from January to June, aims to promote work by Vietnamese artists and support the understanding of art.

"The Danish Culture Development and Exchange Fund's purpose is to contribute to this process by providing resources for artists and art events that are new, contemporary and innovative and reflect a deeper and better understanding of what is happening in Viet Nam," said the ambassador. – VNS