Ly Tran Quynh Giang
In her pandora box of arts, Ly Tran Quynh Giang encapsulates the gamut of human feelings and internal world. Once the viewers gaze into her work, they can no longer escape. A fragment of them is merged into the elusive immensity of melancholy of her subjects, an unutterable sadness with no beginning nor end. The inmost loneliness and poignancy strikes deep and each time has a sui generis character, a different color. Giang is bold and yet retrospective. She invites the audience into a world that is still, awash and curious– where one stands alone and stares into one’s own reflections to contemplate on her existence and being.
One of the most prominent female contemporary artists of Vietnam, Giang graduated from Hanoi Fine Arts University in 2002 and was the first recipient of the Vietnam Foundation for the Art’s individual award in 2008 and winner of the Bright Young Eyes competition organized by the French Embassy and the Vietnamese Fine Art Association. She considers herself to be under the influence of Edward Munch in that the artist dissects her own internal turmoil and the most private feelings, emotions and spaces. Best known for her oil paintings and wood cut panels, her individuality is the rare gem in the Vietnamese contemporary arts world. She depicts the suffering, struggles and torment of human lives on earth, harried by illness and the blurry boundary between life and death and desire for freedom. Going beyond haunting potraits of human subjects, Giang also channels the afflictions of mankind through animals. The intriguing presence of owls, bees and fish in her work sometimes embodies an escape from this earthly world into another cosmos.
Giang’s important exhibitions include Where they turn to (2014), Hey are you sick (2010), The solitary world of Ly Tran Quynh Giang (2010), Giang (2007), Tropical zone (2002). Her works have been exhibited in different countries, including Italy, England, USA, Singapore, China and Malaysia.
Artist’s quote:
“Walking into the crowd, we keep getting entangled in the cobwebs of time-consuming relationships, getting ourselves into affairs that have nothing to do with us, smiling just to reciprocate other people's smiles, going along with other people's ideas, then it’s certain our self will be lost”
ARTIST CV (please click to read her biography)