The painter and the viewer do not have an appointment at a concrete place or time. Yet they will meet in some region of time where a space is extending. One is due to find the other at the point where time and space merge. It is not known whether Einstein, Picasso, Kandinsky and Klee or other Zen classical painters have discovered this. I think abstract painting might be an “invention” of classical musicians, or of the wind that is blowing in prehistoric caves.
As an artist, Vu Hong Nguyen has specialized early and become competent in his work ( in terms of media and genres as well ). Time is conveyed through a wide range of years and figures that evoke something that spills, fuses, is torn, broken, frozen, rough or sharp-edged. As in an apparition, Time comes out lively, shining as gold and vermilion or sombre and stiff. A huge and dolorous Streak of wind like A rag of the past has just berthed the present in a coherent and tidy manner. The region of live memory too dose neither belong to the calendar of last year nor to our own recollection, it exists rather now before our eyes, similar to The water dance that is seething, joyful and coquettish.
I guess that Vu Hong Nguyen would like to feel, understand and present the intercourse between Time and Space as an aestheticist artist.
Ho Chi Minh City, November, 17, 2005
Art Critic Nguyen Quan