Hà Nhì boy: a portrait of his pure & innocent expression, taken by my brother 7 years ago
About ten years ago, maybe a little more, DSLR cameras became more accessible in Vietnam. More people started being able to learn about them, to own and to operate one. My brother was lucky to own one of the best DSLR models – the Canon 5D, and he totally took full advantage of it. He with his group of friends typically made a trip from North to South of Vietnam once or twice a year. They traveled to less popular, less touristy sites of Vietnam, took photos of the local people and the scenery.
Vietnamese Hàng Trống folk painting: Koi Fish recreated by Vietnamese artist Nguyễn Xuân Lam
In my previous post, I shared my finding about contemporary Vietnamese arts. A week ago I had a trip back to Vietnam and coincidentally, I was introduced to Ha Manh Thang – a well-known contemporary Vietnamese artist who has many exhibition in Vietnam and international. Although our first conversation last only for 20-30 minutes, I received very honest and helpful advices from him about my work as well as how I should approach the art scene in Vietnam. At the same time, showing other people my current project forces me to re-think about my aspiration. I decided to do the next round of research, but this time about Vietnamese folk arts – something that possibly falls on the other end of the spectrum compared to contemporary arts.
Paintings by a Vietnamese contemporary artist – from Vietnam Eye
Since I started pursuing ceramics, I’ve always wanted to know more about Vietnamese arts in general, and contemporary Vietnamese arts in particular. I am usually drawn to traditional themes: folk paintings, the use of traditional color palettes, etc. I imagine how it is like to translate these cultural elements into clay. And naturally, one of the questions appears in my mind is “Has anyone done this before?”. I started searching for “Vietnamese sculptors”, “Vietnamese ceramics artists”, “Vietnamese ceramicists”; but I did not find much information. I broadened my search to “Vietnamese artists”, “contemporary Vietnamese artists”; there is more information, but not abundant. There is very little reliable and comprehensive write-up or material about the how contemporary Vietnamese arts develops over time that is available online or accessible to me. There are some short articles here and there, but it is hard to have an overall understanding of the state of contemporary Vietnamese arts, and where it stands regionally and internationally.
The naked raku pear from my raku workshop. I am so proud of this piece!
I’ve always been fascinated and curious about naked raku firing and horse hair raku firing. My favorite raku artist is Denis Di Luca, his work is the finest of raku technique I’ve ever seen. I love the random, unexpected “cracks” as the end results. I love the idea that all these cracks seem to be the imperfection, but they actually made the piece unique. As I shared in one of my previous posts, I enjoy the story behind each object. When I look at a raku piece, I think about the journey it had to go through, how it survives the heat, the shock , comes out “cracked”, scratched, but stronger, with more personality, and it will stay with us forever.
I never thought one day I’d be interested in visiting museums. The last museum I’d been to with excitement – before I started doing ceramics, was The Louvre in Paris. I went there in 2007 as I attended a conference with two classmates to present our academic research. The Louvre was a must-see for a Paris first time visitor, so I went. After that, I learned that going to museums meant I should have some interest or curiosity about arts, history, or any other social science domain. I did not have much of it then; and ever since it has not been exciting for me to visit museums.
