Art Vietnam – Chinh Le

Opening: Sat 15 Nov. 6pm
Exhibition: 15 Nov-05 Dec 2008

Emotion

Art Vietnam presents the deeply meditative and spiritual works of one of Vietnam’s most talented young artists, Chinh Le.

Nguyen Thi Chinh Le is a painter, a sculptor, and a poet. She has always been a deeply introspective artist, diligently traveling on the solitary path towards greater realms of freedom. Her most recent body of work, “Emotion”, is her investigation of an ancient form of beauty stored within many monks – the great energy that is embraced and released during meditation, its profound affect on all facets of daily life.

As the artist discovered the power and the freedom that meditation can contain she began to read a monk’s poetry. As Chinh Le says “I found myself having a conversation with the Monk’s poems. I asked the Monk if I could make a statue of him… In 38 simultaneous days, I made one statue of him each day. It was like it just came to me, each day a surprise.” Through this ritualized activity, the making of one statue after another, the artist entered into state of deep concentration where a small individual moment was investigated each day. Each of these moments contained something of unpredictable beauty – a nuance of joy or sadness, a selfless instant. The plaster statues that Chinh Le made during her time spent with this monk are the origin of the work that appears in “Emotion”.

Chinh Le then turned to two wildly different media – silk painting, and bronze sculpture – in order to poetically capture the juxtapositions that were contained within each of the monk’s individual moods. Capturing the true essence of one monk’s existence, the artist has expressed these deep feelings in two opposing media: the softness of ephemeral silk and the solid concreteness of bronze. The contrast between the two is an expression of the gentleness and hardness of life itself, its irreducibility. Further complimenting the works on silk and in bronze is a small book of riddle-like poems written by Chinh Le herself. The combination of these three media in “Emotion” is like a handful of small blossoms thrown up into the sky – they point the way towards more profound realms of freedom.

Art, sculpture, and poetry are a triumvirate bound by sensitivity, flights of fantasy, and meditated reasoning. A true balance between these three is rarely achieved in one medium let alone all three. Chinh Le’s most recent body of work has accomplished just that.

Art Vietnam Gallery 7 Nguyen Khac Nhu, Hanoi 10 am – 6 pm, closed Sundays Tel: 84 4 927 2349 Fax: 84 4 927 2804 [email protected] [email protected] www.artvietnamgallery.com