Exhibition “The Girls”

Opening: Tue 01 Oct 2019, 5 pm
Exhibition: 01 – 15 Oct 2019, 9 am – 12 pm and 1.30 – 5 pm
VICAS Art Studio
32 Hao Nam Street, Dong Da District, Hanoi

From the organizer:

You are invited to the exhibition “The Girls”, a group exhibition by Nguyen Gia Duc, Dao Tuan, Doan Xuan Tung, Phan Van Thang, Pham Ngoc Vu and Nguyen Minh Tu.

In life as well as in art, THE GIRL is one of the topics that have longest history but never gets old or outdated, because the aesthetic ideal of beauty (both physical and mental beauty) of GIRLS differs from era to era and from culture to culture.

This exhibition brings together 6 artists of different ages and genders to express their opinions about “girls”.

The body of “girls” is the most popular topic, but the artistic techniques and expressive purposes are never the same.

Through his nude paintings, Nguyen Gia Duc demonstrates the feminist perspective on modern society: Girls no longer stick to the housework only, they do also participate in economic and social activities no less actively than men. With that view, he portrayed the urban girls with a modern appearance, which are athletic with a healthy physique and a confident spirit. They are not that gentle and bashful girls or women promoted by Vietnamese artists from the previous generation.

It is also nude, but in Pham Ngoc Vu’s paintings, it is the fiery and seductive beauty of modern women and full of sexual energy. Phan Van Thang, on the other hand, by naïve brushworks, feels nostalgia for the purity of the virgins. Unlike others, Doan Xuan Tung sees the beauty of ordinary women in urban areas in the most refreshing and delicate way. In his opinion, the physique is not as important as the charisma, and so long as you are cheerful and comfortable, you are the best!

Dao Tuan is a special artist. The Red River, where he swims every day and the alcohol are the two factors that always affect his drawing process. In his paintings, sometimes the woman is leaning back and forth and seemingly drunk along with him, sometimes some women hover and sing in his imagination, sometimes they are the women whose bodies are divided, split into pieces, dissipated and flow with him on the Red river.

Nguyen Minh Tu is the only female artist participating in this exhibition with her 8 paintings in the series “Lost in urban”. These works, which are also the narratives of the author, reveal a little bit of her uneasy over the loss of young girls when facing the crazy speed of urbanization and her concern about the conflicts between the native folklore and the massive invasion of foreign and international cultures…

Hanoi, September 2019
Bui Quang Thang
Art Director – Vicas Art Studio