A world of Mysteries

Young Vietnamese painter Tran Viet Phu’s art takes us on a

magical, lyrical journey into secret worlds that speak far
beyond is environment, far beyond the immediacy of his
subjects, and his culture. Phu’s art is one that is thoroughly
modern, yet it possesses a timeless intensity and spirit.

Vietnamese painters for whom the everyday world is their subject face
innumerable challenges in making it extraordinary, taking it beyond
the mere conventional that has been demanded by many since the
country opened up to the world in the late 1980s. For it is only through
the extraordinary that we are able to see beyond the surface reality of
society and to understand some of the mysteries of the everyday.
There are indeed numerous contemporary Vietnamese artists
experimenting with fresh ways of looking at the world beyond the
expectations of the commercial art market’s demand for sentimental
pictures of girls in ao dai, conservative landscapes and monks in
temples. However, the fashion for such artworks, quickly made for the
market place, has tended to obscure the fact that there are many fine
artists for whom painting is the core of their lives. Such is the case of
the young Hanoi-based painter Tran Viet Phu whose portraits, still lifes,
and interiors take us on a magical and lyrical journey into the people
and places of his contemplative world. There is a sense of mystery in
the manner in which he treats his subjects that makes his everyday
world quite extraordinary.
Tran Viet Phu’s process of making art is a slow, painstaking one. It
often takes him months, and sometimes years, to complete a single
work. His astute observation and his attention to the details of his
subjects’ lives and conditions and environments are central to the
success of each painting. His thoughtfull, philosophical appoach to
painting and life is also central to his capturing the heart of both the
mundane and the spirit of his portraits and place. His quest for an
aesthetic that reaches beyond his culture, yet includes it, and his own
deeply felt emotions, whether through figuration or still life or a simple
interior, has been essential in bringing his art alive with a powerfull
immediacy that draws in the viewer. Phu’s painstaking appoach to
painting has meant that he has rarely exhibited his art during the past
decade.
Born in 1973, in Hai Duong province, Phu graduated from Hanoi Fine
Arts University in 1997, and first exhibited his works in 1997. Yet, in his
short career, his paintings have found their way into numerous
international art collections, both public and private. From the outset of
his studies, although not discarding his own painting culture, Phu was
fascinated – and continues to be so – by the art of numerous Western
masters. Diego Velázquez (1591-1660), Rembrandt (1609-1669), Jan
Vermeer (1632-1675), Jean-Simeon Chardin (1699-1779), Franciso
Goya (1746-1828), Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867), and
Edouard Manet (1832-1883) have been the most important in the
development of his own art. Early in his career, Phu’s access to the
works of these masters was only through books and magazines whose
contents he studied diligently. His first direct contact with these
masters’ artworks, however, only came during a visit to Paris and
London in mid-2002. It was a visit that reinforced his admiration for the
greatness of their artistic achievement and one that inspired him to
look at a broader range of art.
“I wasn’t afraid or surprised by their work as I has seen the works in
books for a long time and I had thought a great deal about them. But
one thing that did happen for me after visiting London and Paris was
that I started to look at ideas in the work of Manet, Ingres, and Chardin
as they seemed to say something about my own situation” says Phu. “I
have always like Velazquez and Vermeer because I have always
thought that the spirit of their art is close to that of the Vietnamese
people regardless of the fact that their painting is from another time
and another culture. There is something simple about the way they
paint, and it is in many ways very modern. I do feel close to their work
even though I am living in Vietnam. Rembrandt is very important for
me because I can feel the power of his work. When I look at a
Rembrandt painting, I think that nobody can use oil and color better
than Rembrandt. When I saw the art of Rembrandt I was taken greatly
by the dard, powerful mood of it.”
One is unmistakably aware of the influence and inspiration of the art of
all of these masters’ throughout Phu’s entire oeuvre of the past
decade. It is present in such things as his lighting, the colors that he
uses, his application of paint, the moods he achieves within his
interiors, and his attention to detail. Yet, while Phu acknowledges the
influence and and inspiration of the masters, his art also embraces the
spirit and the diverse aesthetic of realism, naturalism, impressionism,
expressionism, and even abstraction. It is Phu’s link with all of these
and his own unique interpretation of his society and environment that
makes his art completely contemporary, timeless, and quite spiritual.

Whether Phu is making a portrait of a beautiful woman or a peasant

girl, a simple still life in the corner of his studio, or an empty, murky
interior, his challenge is always the same: to reveal something beyond
the mere surface of his subject, something that will help the viewer to
understand the totality of the scene rather than simply the façade. In
Phu’s figurative world, of an individual or groups, there is the
immediate impact of the figures’ physical presence, sitting or standing,
bending over or reclining. It is the posture of which one becomes
instantly aware. It is only gradually that the whole environment comes
alive for the viewer. Good examples of this are Mai (2005), Ly in June
(2005), Picking vegetables (2006), Barefoot (2006), and Playing Cards
(2006).
Mai is a simple but very beautiful portrait of a child, dressed in light
blue trousers and blue and white blouse, sitting alone on a small, low,
armless seat in a darkened room, her hands on her lap, her eyes
looking out into the shadow, waiting. Although she is clearly alone,
there is a sense, suggested by the expectant look on her face, of
someone waiting out of sight just beyond the edge of the painting.
There is something serene about this child. She is a timeless figure that
could fit comfortably into the world of Rembrandt or Vermeer just as
she does so easily into the 21st century Vietnam. This feeling of
expectation is also present in the elegantly articulated Picking
Vegetables in which a small girl in a ragged brown dress, and
seemingly crowned by a green vegetable, is seated within a dark room,
against the wall with simple shelving, vegetables, and utensils around
her. There is an exaggeration in the forms of her hands and feet that
make her seem older than her years. One feels for her in her
aloneness, and the ostensible quiet desperation of her situation. Within
the silence of this scene she is pensive, even sad, but she is quite
angelic, and so lending the whole scene something of a religious
undertone.
Two portraits, Ly in June, a young lady descending a stair case, and
Barefoot, a young woman standing alone in the middle of a room (in
reality the artist’s studio), show Phu’s acknowledgement of classical
figuration. Both of these works are about the grace of young women at
the height of their beauty. The elegant young woman in Ly in June
descends the stairway, dressed in a full, flowing red dress. She looks as
if she has just stepped out of a middle-class Victorian novel. The young
woman in Barefoot, however, clothed in a long white skirt and white
blouse, stands solemnly modern in the middle of a room holding onto
the back of a tall, brown wooden chair, surrounded by silver-framed
paintings and translucent glass objects on the floor. One woman looks
ahead of her and the other stares out at us, thoughtful, calm, as if she
were about to speak to someone hidden a few feet from her. Yet, while
the viewer admires their youth and beauty, there is still a sense that
they are alone, of being objects locked away in impenetrable private
worlds, to be admired rather than communicated with.
The feeling of isolation is again highlighted in Phu’s wonderfully moody
piece Playing Cards (2006) – one of several on the same subject, the
origins of which are based on his own experiences. “When I was a
student and lived at the university, I watched my roomates for three
years playing cards. The images have stuck with me,” says Phu. “When
my friends played cards, they were seriously intense and thought only
about the cards. They forgot about everything else.” Here Phu’s
protagonist are caught within a somber impressionistic scene
embraced by the diffuse interior light. The figures in the group are
slightly inclined, suggesting their deep concentration. For the viewer
the card players are trapped behind a wall of light that cannot be
penetrated. Here is a timeless moment, activity and anticipation
captured with an ease that once again reflects Phu’s thoughtful
observations of people and their private worlds. This work also shows
just how careful he is in treatment of lighting and how he utilizes this
to create both ambiance and character. Yet, even Phu as a ‘voyeur’ of
his own art is not always happy with his figurative work. “I feel that my
portraits are not as strong as my interiors,” he says. “I would like that
my figures could be closer to abstract painting because there is no
limit to the imagination. My full portraits I see as sketches, but this is
unjust to my subjects because I often feel that they are not really
finished.”
Seeking the mystery of time and place is central to Phu as an artist,
whether it is in his portraits or still lifes or simple interiors. This comes
through most forcefully in his carefully wrought and beautifully
atmospheric paintings of simple interiors. Phu’s fascination with
interiors is simple enough. “I like to play with light and the structures
of the walls and the doors, open and closed, and the corners and the
decay. I will paint such places that might appear boring to people, but
interiors are close to me. I can feel the silence in these places and
sense of time passing. I can also see abstraction on the wall.” As befits
the mood of this solitary artist, stark interiors are places through which
his mind can wander at will; creating a narrative of the present that is
linked to the past. Works such as At Home on a Sunny Day (2005),
Guesthouse (2005), and Autumn Night in a Guesthouse (2006) are
three of his finest interior pieces. Phu’s lighting of each picture is
achieved with great skill. The lighting is subtle, never intrusive; one’s
eye is never overwhelmed by it for it is just enough to highlight the
space and its physical reality. Brown, green, red, muddy yellows, and
black dominate in the construction of these paintings, yet there is
never any sense of unattractive dullness for Phu has made a simple,
clear narrative of the spaces. In At Home on a Sunny Day the gleaming
sunlight squeezes between the cracks of the green door; in Autumn
Night in a Guesthouse the faint light cascades from an unseen ceiling
light, the cord of which straggles down the wall beside the door. The
light shadows a small, unfinished painting leaning against the wall
beside the doorway, and in the foreground there is a tube of paint and
a pair of paintbrushes, suggesting that the artist has just left the
scene. Although these interiors are devoid of people, there are
nevertheless hints that people are not far away; the open door and the
hint of a picture on the wall, in Guesthouse, for example. Each of these
interiors speaks of poverty, of the fragility and the transience of life, of
the decay that time and the sadness of isolation. Such things are
central to the power of these works. But not all his interiors are like
this. Lilies and Peony (2005), Artist’s Studio (2006), Dried Lilies (2006),
and October 02 (2006) are alive with colors and flowers, and Summer
Night (2005), with its large painting on easel, suggests the activity of a
busy artist. Such works hark back to more distant times and places
where artists worked by natural light and candle light.
Phu finds beauty in a simplest of environments, either natural or those
created by himself. Whether it is in dense garden or tangled woodland
undergrowth, as in Garden as Winter Approaches (2005), Afternoon
(2005), Rising Sun(2006), and Setting Sun (2006) or in the simplicity of
still lifes such as Grapefruit, Peach, Pomegranate (2005), Corner of the
Yard (2005), April (2005), Red Peony (2006), and Balcony (2006). Phu’s
rich colors reveal his love of the natural world and its place in his life
and art. His bold colors highlight both the reality of his objects and how
such natural things enhance spaces. One of his finest examples of his
still lifes is Corner of the Yard. Here the rich green of the plants’ leaves
of his hightened by red and white of the flowers’s bloom. The plants,
with a single glass of water beside them, are set against the rugged
brickwork of the yard’s wall, solitary entities in a dark corner. This work
is perhaps one of his best metaphors for life. While in a number of
Phu’s works there is a definite sense of sadness, in his still lifes there is
the quiet of life. He does not overly romanticize his subjects, nor does
he make them dreamily sentimental. He is for the most part sturdily
natural and realistic. There is just the right amount of detail, just the
correct value of color and light. His still lifes are all exquisitely lit
reinforcing the impressive manner in which he suggests the mystery of
the world around us. His attention to careful lighting also brings out the
strength and beauty of his colors, making his rich reds glow and his
greens seem to pulsate with life. There is an ethereal quality to his still
lifes that emphasizes Tran Viet Phu’s ability to turn the ordinary into
the extraordinary and in which we see the presence of the masters
that he loves.
Over the past decade, Phu has sought his own personal aesthetic
through diligent study and painting, often discarding works that didi
not speak to his aesthetic. In this time, however, there has been one
major change in his art, a move from lightness to darkness. Phu says
that the “spririt rises out of the darkness.” The spirit that rises out of
the texture of his heavily applied layering of oil paint is one that seems
alive with the energy of life, but an energy that is not always readily
accessible to the viewer. “Since the year 2000, I wanted to make a
painting that looked as if it had a layer of dust on the surface. It is
challenging because I want to avoid first impressions of a subject,” he
says. “I want to create another view of the subject, more abstract,
something magical between the light and the dark, the world in
between light and dark.”
For Tran Viet Phu painting is a voyage between the past and the
present, between tradition and modernity, between life and death. For
the viewer his art is a journey into secrets of the world waiting to be
revealed. Whether he is making a portrait, a still life, or an interior,
Phu’s world between the light and the dark is a lyrical, narrative one, a
powerful visual poetry of mysteries that seduce the imagination,
making the ordinary extraordinary.