HÀ NỘI — An exhibition of outstanding lacquer paintings showcasing a journey of artistic innovation and creation by artist Phạm Sinh will open this weekend in the heart of Hà Nội.

The exhibition, themed ‘Converse the Journey: Close View – Code S,’ presents 41 selected lacquer works that the artist has created to express his love and passion for art, his profession and his perspectives on art and life.

It will open on November 1 and run until November 9 at the Art Gallery of the Việt Nam Fine Arts Association (VNFAA), 16 Ngô Quyền Street, Hà Nội.

Artist and sculptor Phạm Sinh, 65, is a member of the VNFAA and currently works as a sculpture lecturer at the University of Industrial Fine Arts.

His career has been marked by many notable achievements, including participation in annual national exhibitions held by the association, as well as sculpture exhibitions in Việt Nam and abroad in 1990, 1993, 1995, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2010 and 2013.

 

In the field of sculpture, he has participated in many large-scale national applied sculpture projects and won awards in 1990, 1993, 2002 and 2003.

Outstanding works that he has jointly created with a group of artists include a sculpture of President Hồ Chí Minh themed Uncle Hồ with the Education Sector at the Hà Nội Pedagogical College in 1993, a traditional monument to Mạo Khê coal mine workers in 2004, a statue at the Nam Định Pedagogical College in 1996, a monument for the Special Forces Museum in 2001 and a monument to the late Party General Secretary Nguyễn Văn Linh, located in Hưng Yên Province in 2015.

“Artistic work is a passion, a desire to express what I always think. Art gives me freedom, happiness and peace of mind. It also helps me train my thinking to maintain physical and mental health. For me, the hardest thing is to overcome myself, to dare to give up old ways of thinking and working even though they have been shaped and are difficult to change. Art is personality, the most sacred path to perfecting yourself,” said Phạm Sinh.

Commenting on the sculptor's art, artist and critic Ngô Xuân Bính said: “Art is the involvement and commitment of an individual, a group of people, a generation, many generations – a genealogy. But for Phạm Sinh, Converse the Journey is a very unique path, both struggling, teasing and awakening, passionately enlightened... He reflects... He organises... He sows seeds according to his own emotional order... Freedom here is his own, the complete freedom of a sculptor, painter and true thinker, a real theorist whom many may consider a ghost, a god-damned, eccentric person worthy of respect.”

In Phạm Sinh’s works, techniques have become a close part of the unification to convey a message of innovation, aesthetic creation and the essence of the evolutionary function.

According to Bính, art in Phạm Sinh’s paintings contains a uniquely expressive indigenous transmission and contemporary values.

The works reflect the value of time and suggest that art not only beautifies the world but also resonates and contemplates with it.

Bính said: “Art in Phạm Sinh’s works does not simply vibrate back in one direction but creates thinking and reflection beyond limits, as an act of existence, leading, awakening and metaphorically repenting without forcing... awakening the view. Let’s look at the world, so many mysteries yet to be discovered.” — VNS