Burying himself in the bottom of the board, closing his eyes to see with his ears and breaking up the metaphysical barriers of time, Vũ Hồng Nguyên safely retains the slow rhythm of lacquer painting which, though being floating and sophisticated, still freely expands its open-ended structures of Oriental aesthetic sense and creates an interesting East – West artistic encounter and intertwining on each narrow square of the picture.
Reducing his rational sharpness, Nguyên becomes more infatuated with his warm and earnest feeling but still maintains the calmness and caution of a mature artist when he improvises with variations on the wharfs of reality and voidness in this temporary mortal life.
Serene pools of water are pushed towards windswept empty spaces, rags of the past let flown into the water dance that is tearing off Time’s bleak window frames…
Vũ Hồng Nguyên truly acquires a magnanimous, unitary view of lacquer painting soon followed by his innocent perfectionism when he paints in other media.
Hanoi, November 15, 2005.
Lương Xuân Đoàn