Exhibition “Of Light and Linger”
Opening: 05 pm – 08 pm, 19 July 2025
Exhibition: 10 am – 06 pm, Wed – Sun 19 July – 31 Oct 2025
Wiking Salon
79 Nguyễn Hữu Thọ, Nhà Bè, HCMC
From the organizer:
Throughout the history of art, capturing light has never been merely a study in realism. Light has always been more than illumination — it is meaning, mood, and presence. Across centuries, medium light has been used to guide the eye and stir the soul: the soft glow of intimacy to the stark flash of revelation and the slow fade of time passing. This exhibition brings together artists who treat light not only as an aesthetic device, but as a subject in itself. It is used to stretch time, to soften memory, to hold longing. It is the suggestion of a figure out of frame, the echo of a window just out of view, the afterglow of something already gone.
To Linger with Light is to accept its temporality. Their works ask us to linger—with stillness, with attention—on what light does when we allow it to unfold: to graze, to recede, to hold. Light here is not fixed or dramatic, but suggestive, quiet, and often tender. It becomes a way to explore absence, transience, and emotional resonance. Whether conjuring memory, guiding a figure, marking loss, or celebrating the body, light here shapes the emotional and symbolic terrain of each work. In all of them, light is a language — abstract yet intimate — speaking of what hovers just beyond words.
About Wiking Salon
Wiking Salon, founded in 2023, emerges as a dynamic space for contemporary art in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Dedicated to fostering cutting-edge artistic expression, the gallery serves as a meeting ground for established and emerging artists, curators, and creative minds from around the world. Through thought-provoking exhibitions and dialogues, the gallery fosters a vibrant exchange that reflects the ever-evolving landscape of contemporary art.
About artists
Ca Lê Thắng (b.1949) is a prominent figure in modern Vietnamese fine arts, with significant contributions in both painting and art education. He came from an intellectual family in Bến Tre. After the Geneva Accords were signed in 1954, he moved to Hanoi with his family in 1955 as part of the regrouping. In 1975, he returned to the South as a lecturer at the Fine Arts School and became a pioneering figure in reviving the abstract painting movement nationwide. His artworks are inspired by memories of the flood season in the Mekong Delta, where he was born and raised.
Đinh Quân (b.1964) was born in Hải Phòng and studied Lacquer Painting, graduating from the Vietnam University of Fine Arts in 1990. He is one of the most renowned contemporary painters in Vietnam, with artworks exhibited in 15 countries and featured in many significant collections, including the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum, the Singapore Art Museum, the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan, the National Art Gallery of Malaysia, and various private collections around the world.
Nguyễn Thị Châu Giang (b.1975) graduated from the oil painting department of the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts in 1998. Her artistic practice encompasses literature, painting, performance, and installation. Giang is proficient in traditional silk painting techniques incorporating contemporary perspectives. Her artwork addresses the traditional roles of gender and the changing place of women in Vietnamese patriarchal society, as well as contemplates on the nature of lives, especially from women’s points of view.
Nguyễn Thúy Hằng (b.1978) is a visual artist, poet, and writer, graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts, and is renowned for her talent in both literature and visual arts. Hang’s writings are packed with mystical and chaotic elements, which are also reflected in her paintings and sculptures, evoking a sense of loneliness and isolation within the context of Vietnamese society.
Dương Thùy Dương (b.1979) graduated from the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Germany. Duong’s art is a visual dialogue between Eastern and Western identities, culturally and artistically. Her optical illusions work raises questions about our beliefs in metaphysical theories on Love, Life and Death.
Hoàng Anh (b.1981) graduated from Hue University of Fine Arts. Hoang Anh is interested in the connections between human relationships and imaginations of the surrounding world, blurring the boundaries between reality and the supernatural.
Tôn Thất Minh Nhật (b. 1982) graduated in 2007 from the University of Fine Arts Huế. Over the past 15 years Minh Nhật has transformed the practice of lacquer into a personal ritual in which he expounds memories and engraves the country’s heritage, particularly through the ancient architectural features of Huế, where he lives.
Nguyễn Quốc Dũng (b.1983) graduated from the oil painting department of the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts in 2014. Dung’s artworks capture moments in time, offering a glimpse into everyday life and depicting empathetic yet straightforward portraits of immigrants, transgender people, and marginalized groups often ignored or excluded from society. Dung’s unconventional depictions of characters go beyond the idealized beauty standards, portraying their slice of life reality.
Nguyễn Việt Anh (b.1989) is a painter based in Hanoi. He graduated with a major in Painting from the Vietnam University of Fine Arts in 2014. His interests revolve around familiar places or architectural elements examined through the lens of time and light reflection. According to Viet Anh, architectural structures or objects illuminated by the sun at 3:00pm are the most emotionally resonant moments.
Tuyền Nguyễn (b.1990) graduated from Ho Chi Minh City Fine Art University in 2018. For him, art is first and foremost a personal liberation.With this ethos, the artist responds to the daily events occurring both inside and outside of himself. His work is a distillation of personal identity, Through the themes of environmentalism and urbanisation, he encapsulates the dream of miniscule, constrained, and powerless humans navigating themselves through the whirl of modern society.
Mifa (b.1990) graduated from Ho Chi Minh City University of Architecture. Since 2015 she has focused on researching and experimenting with acrylic paints on traditional Vietnamese Diep paper. Her works delve into the depth of the harmony and conflict of Eastern identity in the era of globalisation that runs parallel with the desire to preserve and develop the folk spirit through the form of painting.
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