LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL
Life
is beautiful" is a new slice in the creative process of Vu Dinh Tuan,
it consists of a number of serial artworks viz. Egg, HER, Happy
Footsteps, Dance, Happiness, Ladies, Somnambulism, A Contemporary Day
…the pictures reveal the artist's passionate and serious work as well as
his constant search for creative ideas which is both radical and
flexible, consistent and incessantly innovative.
LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL
Bui Nhu Huong
“Life is beautiful” is a new slice in the creative process of Vu Dinh Tuan, it consists of a number of serial artworks viz. Egg, HER, Happy Footsteps, Dance, Happiness, Ladies, Somnambulism, A Contemporary Day …the
pictures reveal the artist’s passionate and serious work as well as his
constant search for creative ideas which is both radical and flexible,
consistent and incessantly innovative.
The
pictures bring about a new, modern atmosphere, truly a cheerful feast
shining with tints and colours, painting lines and strokes. There are no
more old stories of rural markets, fishermen’s villages, the landscapes
of a banyan tree, a wharf or a sampan …to bore the viewer’s eyes. And
are dying out also the plain and aesthetically familiar range of colours
we often see in traditional wood -cuts.
The set of prints Ladies appear
as a splendid carnival with all kinds of affected clothing and masks,
ancient and modern alike, miscellaneous and ever - transforming. You may
seeLadies with
a graceful gait and a traditional appearance who are very knowledgeable
about music, chess, poetry and painting. And there are also nude Ladies who
are very modernist with their bodies freely decorated with patterns
after the “body art” style in vogue recently in the world. The masks
look rather comic and bizarre, from the faces of flowers, birds, owls to
those of wild beasts transformed into phoenixes…They evoke varied
metaphors and associations of ideas: are they gentle or superficial?
Sincere or treacherous? The Muse or devil? Beside the authority, luxury,
glitter and attraction of this feminine world there prevails a sense of
insecurity, a danger signal which warns that the world of humans
nowadays has lost its ancient purity and simplicity: it is covered up by
sheaths and packaging of ads and deception with the possible threat of
wars. Be on your guard!
The set of prints Happy Footsteps, Dance, Happiness express
the joy of life and human aspiration for love. This simple and eternal
topic is exploited and developed by Vu Dinh Tuan though his free,
fanciful plastic art rhythms and the diversified composition with
gentle, liberal lines and strokes, very fine and close to art. The range
of colours is fresh and novel, going far beyond the simple, limited one
used in traditional, folk woodcuts. With a bit of attention, you’ll
notice that the artist has skilfully executed the colour masses by
sophisticated engravings, imprints of superimposed colours, supplemented
by decorative patterns to induce gentleness anal a subtle harmony of
colours. This will enrich Vu Dinh Tuan’s works with the graceful,
elegant richness of the sense of beauty in modern art, thus lessening
the dryness inherent in woodcuts.
Apart
from the sublimation of love, natural instinct and reproductive
vitality concealed under childish picture titles such as Nu Na Nu Nong(
lit. onomatopoeia, a children’s game),Chong Nu Chong Hoa(lit.
Superimposing buds and flowers – a children’s game) once again we see Vu
Dinh Tuan coming back to complex, confused, hallucinatory states of
mind in his set of pictures Somnambulism.
Here there are still human figures but they do not go in pair
harmoniously, quite on the contrary, they behave as adversaries, roaring
and writhing in a confined, strained space amid an environment infected
by owls and snakes: such a heavy range of colours with dark spaces!
Could it be that the artist has a permanent premonition about the world
today, the one that is not always peaceful and serene but full of
obscurity and insecurity instead.
For
a long time, Vu Dinh Tuan has been known as a competent artist in the
field of woodcuts and silk paintings marked by several fine art awards.
“Life is beautiful” is his first solo exhibition of woodcuts. The art
display shows that Vò §×nh TuÊn, on the basis of national artistic
tradition and his own talent, has made a new advance both in artistic
language as well in the technique of printing woodcuts. He is openly and
efficiently receptive to Oriental and Western influences, to modern
aesthetics and the present-day sense of beauty with a view of finding
out his own way and individual style. That leads to a remarkable success
in the present art exhibiton.
Hanoi, October 2009.
Bui Nhu Huong
Art critic.
(English Translation by The Hung,Ph.D.)