Hoang Tram’s art retrospective

A retrospective of Vietnamese artist Hoang Tram opened yesterday in the Applied Arts Museum, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The 82 year old was signing catalogues, surrounded by large flower arrangements. On display were some works that he painted this year. I overheard a visitor saying that to produce that much art you must work lots every day. Indeed, there was a good number of works, from the 1960s until now.  How satisfying it must be to see a lifetime of artistic achievements in one place!

The drawings are all very well executed, but it’s the variety of people and faces that engages the eye more than technical precision. Faces young and old are drawn with enough roughness to appear fresh and light, but crafted well enough to prolong the gaze around the lightly-greyed in background outlines. Drawings of factory workers look quickly penciled in, but the layers of lines from dark to light take us all the way to the back of each room. The eye lingers on all the details, but never feels tired by too much mechanical exactitude. Wonderful stuff especially when it gets to the close up. Portraits full of character! The little watercolours, usually landscapes, are equally lovely – accurate but swift brushmarks to snapshop a panorama.

The artist has had fun using different colour palettes for the oil paintings. From vibrant contrasts to harmonious muted tones to match the subject matter, they are academic paintings with that bold propaganda-style cleanliness of line.

Lacquer paintings, on the other hand, use the materials’ traditional reds, blacks and golds, but suggest more abstract representations. The topics are distinguishable, but offer an imaginative, childlike, form.

The most exciting use of colour happens recently, with oil paint. Nothing too challenging or radical, just a subtle combination of retro pastels that is saturated enough to kick the brain into new readings of the picture. This is my favourite:

A fascinating choice of pink for the murky river waters! The uniform colour blocks and the birds-eye perspective creates a flatness that reminds me of Alfred Wallis’s views of the English coastline towns. Graphically beautiful!

#Saigon #Colour #Drawing #Painting #Vietnam