KVT – Treescapes at Chula

(Vietnamese version available)

KVT in sensuous summer mood

One of those nights in early July that made living in Hanoi a sensuous experience, especially if you wound your way around the perimeter roads of Ho Tay with warm winds tendrilling through your hair, a hint of rain spattering your face; and more especially if you dawdled through the thick perfume wafting from inky lotus ponds; and even more so if you were on your way to one of Diego and Laura’s occasional Chula Nights.Chula Nights are extra special events that combine extra cool world-type live music in a leafy courtyard, extra cool fashion, and showcase the really cool work of an exciting artistic talent. (For the uninitiated, ‘chula’ is Spanish colloquial slang for ‘super cool’. My previously posted overview of chula Hanoi style can be clicked on here.)

Previous Chula shows had displayed the sumptuous lacquers of Phi Phi Oanh and the stunning portraits of Ha Manh Thang. And this one had tree-scapes by Dao Le Huong.

Her piece de resistance is a sumptuous canvas that has a gnarled and bare leafed tree outlined starkly, wrought iron-like, against a deep crimson sky.

It’s a simple yet complex piece… swirling and sensuous. Paint has been applied thickly and – I have to use that word again- sensuously. It’s one of those paintings liable to make poets swoon and lovers melt.

Dao Le Huong has prefaced her small Chula exhibition with a series of delicate drawings of trees in different seasons, a couple of equally delicate studies and a nice canvas of trees against a cold and wintry sky…effective enough to make you shiver.

Art connoisseurs will be familiar with Dao Le Huong’s earlier work and will be delighted to re-connect with her new energy.

The work is up at Chula until the end of August and a lot of you will be as sensuously taken in by that gnarled tree and its crimson sky as I was. It’s worth a visit …and if you haven’t discovered Chula yet, then you should.