Choosing painting over more lucrative careers seems to have paid off for
a Hanoian artist who uses images of lotuses to create intricate
commentary on the human condition.
Pham Quoc Tuan
has tried many careers, but he finds himself drawn most to painting. For
him, depicting lotuses on silk is a way to capture the essence of true
art.
Tuan keeps most of his paintings in an
unpretentious room at his apartment in Vong Duc Street. Wooden tea trays
and handmade lanterns create a sense of serenity, instilling every
corner with the aroma of a meditation room.
“Home is where the heart is. Living here, I feel like I can forget myself and give the whole me to my art,” said Tuan.
Only in his early 30s, Tuan has developed a perspective on life and
art. He has worked in many career fields, some of which offered fortunes
that others would find it hard to pass up. Today, however, art is his
only motivation.
“It’s easy to become a slave to
money. When you overcome that obsession, though, you can see the value
of tranquility,” said Tuan.
This man nurtures an odd love for lotuses. For the last five years, most of his paintings have featured the plant.
“Luan hoi” (Samsara), a set of four multicoloured lotuses, uses
lotuses to depict the life cycle. “The vivid colours and mysterious
circles reflect the evolutionary process and natural phenomena. When I
put them under the electric light, the veins of leaves resurface
clearly, inspiring strong compassion and emotion from viewers,” Tuan
said.
His painting “Tuyet Lien” (Snow Lotus), a
white lotus painted in the middle of smooth silk, is a metaphor for the
“rare feeling of freshness in the painter’s heart”.
The silk painting trend is a way to review the old and understand the
new. A single brush stroke on the silk surface, like a blow from a
Samurai warrior, is a deceptively complex act. A painter must listen to
his hand’s weight and then create a careful line.
Tuan often waxes philosophical on the differences between Eastern and
Western arts. “All art intends to create emotion in the viewer,” he
said. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In my opinion, Western art
is like many kinds of science. Classical Western art tends towards
rationalism and standardisation. In order to pursue art as a profession,
it is a must to learn topography and anatomy. However, modern art now
has a new face, one that is more abstract and surrealist.
“In Eastern art, the individual character is taken seriously. The
coloured background is light and the image of the real world absorbs
into the painter’s mind. You have to penetrate deeply into these two art
forms to mix them together cleverly.”
The artist is
a huge fan of Chinese artists like Qi Baishi and Xu Beihong. In each of
their paintings, he feels the inner spirit of natural living beings.
“This mystic kind of stroke is not easy to learn like the ‘ngu cung’
(pentatonic music scale) of the East,” he said. “I used to work in
architecture, art and fashion, so I applied what I learned with space
and proportion to designing clothes. I also put the image of the lotus
into each ao dai design, so that it could contain both Western and
Eastern style.”
In 2011, Tuan co-organised the ao
dai show “Quoc Sac Thien Huong” (National Beauty) with the Vietnam
Women’s Union and the Vietnam Women’s Museum, which displayed hundreds
of garments. Tuan will create another ao dai show at Miss AdAsia 2013 as
well as an exhibition of hundreds of lotus silk paintings at the 28th
Asian Advertising Congress, held from November 11 to 14. He will put a
poem about lotuses on each painting.
While lotuses
are a common theme in his current work, his life philosophy is not easy
to put into a box. It seems that the artist is committed to exploring
all possible avenues of creativity, wherever they might lead. “My
favourite quote is ‘The road is made by walking’. I will continue
working as an artist based on that idea,” said Tuan.-VNA