Loan Phuong's Road to the Clouds

The Road to the Clouds introduces more than 30 lacquer works created by artist Loan Phuong over the past four years, on display from now until October 22 at the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts Association.

Quietly admiring the dreamy world in Loan Phuong's exhibition "Road to the Clouds" - Photo: H.VY

The exhibition opens up a shimmering golden lacquer world, where flowers, animals, girls and clouds blend together in the rhythm of dreams. It is the artist Loan Phuong’s own virtual world, where painting helps her heal.

From private memories to shared dreams

Artist Loan Phuong was born in 1987. Passionate about painting since childhood, she majored in lacquer painting at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts and then went on to graduate with a master's degree in fine arts. Busy with family, children and teaching at the University of Fine Arts, she only returned to her creative work in 2021.

Loan Phuong's Road to the Clouds started with the shock of losing her father during the pandemic. During the days of quarantine, facing four suffocating walls and the pain of loss, Loan Phuong dreamed of a paradise.

"I started drawing to open up my own virtual world. The world I dreamed of was very simple and poetic. There was no pain, only harmony between humans, plants, flowers, and gentle animals.

Painting saved me. I felt like I could go to the ocean, to the mountains, even fly up to the clouds, living freely in nature while the city was still silent out there..." - Loan Phuong confided.

Although originating from pain, Loan Phuong’s paintings are not gloomy or sorrowful, but full of vitality and joy. Viewers can easily feel the spirit of revival in each bright color block, shimmering red hue, and gentle, flowing lines.

In that world, the image of women appears sparkling, sometimes as dreamy young girls, sometimes as symbols of a calm, tolerant mother nature. They blend in with flowers, birds, and animals, becoming a part of life, creating a space that is both magical and pure...

For Loan Phuong, painting allows her to escape reality, fly into a space of colors, and release her inner emotions and thoughts that always haunt her - Photo: H.VY

A gentle and enduring female voice with lacquer

With 15 years of working with lacquer, for Loan Phuong, this is not only a material but also a memory, a sediment of time. Each time she polishes, it is like carving into her soul, both painful and sparkling...

When the light reflects on the gold, silver or eggshells, the paintings change as if they are breathing and living. Loan Phuong does not seek perfection but rather a breath. Painting for her is like opening a window where she breathes freely and gives it back to the viewer.

Loan Phuong's lacquer paintings strictly follow traditional techniques but have a modern, decorative spirit. The sophistication and meticulousness of the techniques do not make her paintings lose their poetic quality but rather enhance their clarity and depth.

According to curator and artist Phan Trong Van, using traditional lacquer materials combined with sophisticated techniques and modern inspiration, this series of paintings is both a memorial to his father and a tribute to life.

Journalist Cuong Quach commented: "In Loan Phuong, lacquer is not only nostalgia or technique but also a dreamy language, where women, nature and beauty coexist."

Journalist and artist Truong Nguyen Nga said: "It seems like she wants to tear apart the shell of prejudice that always binds women, but still maintains a gentle, dreamy demeanor as if she were living in her own paradise on earth."

The appearance of The Road to the Clouds also adds a gentle female voice to the flow of contemporary Vietnamese fine arts, where female artists are increasingly present with confidence, no longer as objects to be admired but as creative subjects and tellers of their own stories.

HUYNH VY

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/duong-len-may-cua-loan-phuong-20251019100407509.htm