KVT – Wandering Through Vu Duc Trung Landscapes

KVT: landscapes and imagination at Mai Gallery

Go up to the third floor at the Mai Gallery in Hang Bong St and you are in for another lacquer treat by Vu Duc Trung whose work has traveled a fair way around the world to exhibitions and private collections

The last treat was in October at Dong Phong gallery which was excellently successful for both artist and gallery.

Some may call it over exposure but when you get invited by a gallery to have an exhibition up to a year in advance an artist can rarely say no…and when you are on a roll with the public and buyers you’d be silly to refuse.

For this exhibition Vu Duc Trung has presented about 20 lacquer works in his inimitable style wherein the works can be read as landscapes (as most viewers tend to want a recognizable narrative that they can lose themselves in….often nostalgically)

To cater for the realists and dreamers in our midst the artist has called the exhibition IMAGINARY LANDSCAPES and has published a very beautiful catalogue that shows a chronological progression of his ‘landscape’ lacquers since his first and enormously successful exhibition of them in 2006. It’s one of those handsome art books that you could give to non arty types and they’d fall into it too-or, rather, wander into the landscapes. You can get copies at the exhibition or at the Bookworm. They make excellent Chrissie gifts and are amazingly inexpensive.

To cater more emphatically Trung has given the lacquers simple names that immediately give viewers’ a focus…such as ‘THE MOON’ which is as evocative as the real thing on a night of full moon sailing silver

The largest work in the show is 200x100cm and is very attractive. Staying with the landscape scenario I imagine it to be a very still pond-scape with a perfect reflection. It is a recent work

From the largest to the smallest work at 40x50cm, It’s also the cheapest at about $1 000 and was painted in 2012.

A popular size in the exhibition is 50x80cm and these two are representative of the quality of Trung’s use of traditional lacquer, both also from 2012. Both, for me, hark back to reflections in still water

The artist occasionally departs from the traditional landscape format and squares a few pieces. These two are from this year’s output and the latter is almost too gorgeous for words

Another piece I like reminds me of marsh lands in a flat landscape under wide skies. It’s 55x 125cm and dated 2014

In some works Trung adds silver leaf. This one from 2012 could be dubbed Blue Poles in honor of that famous Jackson Pollock work that had Australia in an uproar in 1973 and whose poles were deep navy

The next silver leaf examples hark from 2013 and 14 respectively. The first may strike a chord with the optimistic spring time in people and the second with dark and denuding autumn. The touch of pink in it is quite masterful

It’s an exhibition worth catching, and like all of Vu Duc Trung’s solos, exudes peace and calm. It is on until Dec 18