(Exhibiton from 22. 7. 2022 at Apricot, Hàng Trong, Hanoi)
Cong Quoc Ha was born in 1955, graduated from Hanoi University of Industrial Fine Arts… a familiar name, much loved among artists in Vietnam. In fact, he was a painter who early established his own artistic visual language compared to other artists of his time. The subjects of the old quarter, girls, nudes, still lifes of Cong Quoc Ha are not new, but the shape in his paintings is not confused with any other artists.
Cong Quoc Ha’s painting today is a combination of modern, concise, and thrifty techniques, original colors, and soft decorative details interwoven to lighten the horizontal and vertical lines. The visual language is still very Cong Quoc Ha, but it is a different expressive style of creation.
This exhibition marks the 10-year period of living away from his homeland, settling in Sweden as “a space of Cong Quoc Ha through many periods of his career in more than 40 years. Materials such as acrylic, oil, lacquer are shown through 18 selected works. Cong Quoc Ha does not consider any material better or worse, but the core is to renew himself through creation.”
In his word to art lovers for this Art by Cong Quoc Ha exhibition, he wrote:
“New country, new language, new culture. Will I become a new person?
2012 was a turning point – marking a change in my life as well as in my career.
As an artist who has achieved certain success and a stable career, my family then decided to move to Sweden – a distant country, completely foreign in every way.
Even for local artists, it is not easy to have a firm foothold and a stable life. So what am I supposed to do? Leave my career unfinished, put my brushes and colors in a corner of the warehouse and get a new job? Am I still me?
10 years – a period of time that is not too long but not too short, 10 years with lots of new stories, is an important part of my life as an artist.
I have met and interacted with many new friends outside the scope of art. I founded a company with my family, participated in real estate management, construction, learned a lot and stumbled a lot. Then I travelled when I could, learn new art environments, visit countless museums with a different perspective than just through the eyes of a travelling Vietnamese artist, take advantage of visiting museums around the world. I have more time to be able to create for myself a silence, deeper, more meditative, more open and most importantly: Gradually contemplating, discovering myself, giving myself a chance develop to become ME OF TODAY.
Not a new person, but a better CONG QUOC HA than yesterday, an ABSOLUT CONG QUOC HA.
Celebrating 10 years of living and working in Sweden, Cong Quoc Ha respectfully sends to close friends as well as art lovers, loving the beauty of Ha’s set of paintings in many stages and shown in many different materials.
The exhibition features 18 works on the beauty of the country, people and nature that have been perceived and expressed through my own perspective in many periods. This is also part of the story of an artist’s life and the experience that I would like to share with you.”
Welcome art lovers!
Compiled by Viet Art View
