Nguyen Ngoc Phuong's 49th day

Nguyen Ngoc Phuong at the studio - Photo: T.DIEU

In April 2018, Nguyen Ngoc Phuong surprised everyone when he first exhibited Day 49 at the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum (Hanoi), with large-scale abstract paintings and a new painting practice.

It is also polished like lacquer but not polished to a shiny surface like lacquer. And the materials he uses range from soil, stone, wood... to gold and silver.

This time Nguyen Ngoc Phuong introduces paintings that are several dozen square meters wide - Photo: T.DIEU

If I'm not confused, I don't draw.

This synthetic material in a different artistic practice, Nguyen Ngoc Phuong named P lacquer, in which the letter P has many meanings, is the first letter in Phuong's name, is the first letter in the English word "pain" - pain...

Nguyen Ngoc Phuong said he draws the pains of life he has experienced and his confusion. He is often confused about where he is and what he is. When he is confused, he draws. "If I am not confused, I will not draw. I will do something better," Nguyen Ngoc Phuong said.

And still with that confusion, four months later Nguyen Ngoc Phuong continued to present the second exhibition The 49th Day in August 2018, also at the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum. Painter Yen Nang commented that this exhibition was as impressive as the first but more extreme.

"The brown, yellow and lines are gone, the surface of the painting only has two colors: black and white with the metallic shine of silver, the deep black of lacquer and the rough rhythmic effect, calling out in the viewer's subconscious an ancient nature...", Yen Nang commented on Nguyen Ngoc Phuong's paintings.

Still using unique materials, still using the same painting techniques as a farmer, free but skillful, spontaneous but proactive. The painting is several dozen square meters wide with large, open strokes but detailed down to every centimeter. In particular, the surface of the painting is flat but full of space, with some areas that seem really deep, and some that protrude like a cliff...

Artist Yen Nang

Friends and art lovers do not mind the long distance to see Nguyen Ngoc Phuong's paintings - Photo: T.DIEU

Why Day 49?

Because of the extremism in this exhibition, some people shook their heads and said that Nguyen Ngoc Phuong could not continue painting.

Yet this March, Nguyen Ngoc Phuong continued to display a solo exhibition of even larger paintings than before, still in the same extreme spirit with few colors, no lines, and even larger sizes, some up to 10m long and 3m wide.

This time he chose the form of "opening a workshop" (in Soc Son, Hanoi) to invite friends and art lovers to come and see the paintings instead of framing them in a museum space. And the theme is still Day 49.

Why is Nguyen Ngoc Phuong so fascinated by "the 49th day"? He explains that the 49th day, to him, is the time of transformation from one form of energy to another.

Nguyen Ngoc Phuong often encounters a state of artistic impasse. But at the end of that impasse, something will break and the state will be transformed into a new form. Works and creations will be born.

Painter Ly Truc Son was particularly impressed by the spirit of freedom in Nguyen Ngoc Phuong's paintings.

According to him, Nguyen Ngoc Phuong's art is not bound by rules or old traditions. He keeps himself from being surrounded by many rules and ideologies, including his own understanding.