Wounds of the times in Duong Thuy's Legacy

Những vết thương thời đại trong Di chứng của Dương Thụy - Ảnh 1. — Coming to "Sequel", viewers do not enjoy the visual beauty of the work but directly face a world filled with evidence of insecurity, doubt but also full of reality - Photo: H.VY

Every piece of newspaper, bill, plastic bag, plastic bullet... becomes a means for artists to bear witness to their times.

Sequelae is the second solo exhibition of artist Duong Thuy, displaying more than 100 works from now until September 28 at Maii Gallery (72/7 Tran Quoc Toan, HCMC).

Both a wound and a mirror

For Duong Thuy, art is an honest reflection of the human soul in a chaotic and fragile world.

In The Legacy , he lives as a witness, facing the bitter truths of the times and turning paintings into a place containing pressing issues: consumerism, violence, division, lies and the erosion of human values...

Combining abstraction and realism, Thuy seeks to expose the fragile links between individuals, communities, and the environment.

Những vết thương thời đại trong Di chứng của Dương Thụy - Ảnh 2. — For Thuy, art is not only about creation but also about existence. Each work is both a wound and a mirror: an invitation to face the pain, while also evoking reflection, healing and hope.

Duong Thuy was born in 1977, an architect by profession, once known as a street artist, a watercolor painter who traveled to draw and paint throughout Europe, and finally devoted himself to contemporary art.

He has painted thousands of works from small A4 size to large canvas with all the materials he has at hand or around his studio that he has collected, from acrylic, oil paint, printed newspaper, packaging, even chopsticks, baby clothes, toy bullets, monthly bills...

To Thuy, everything has its own layers of meaning and is evidence of real life. The exhibition Legacy is Thuy's journey of preserving, confronting, connecting and decoding many reflective questions with those evidences.

Những vết thương thời đại trong Di chứng của Dương Thụy - Ảnh 3. — Thuy's works all revolve around real-life events, because he believes that artists belong to the present.

What makes Legacy haunting is the way Thuy weaves personal memories with collective memories. The title itself reflects his rejection of what is easy, casual, and superficial. Thuy chooses to get straight to the point, and that makes his story meaningful.

"My paintings don't say right or wrong, they just raise issues. I also don't try to make anyone beautiful. I have to live in my own time, witness and record the world I live in, it is like that.

There are old wounds that are still ongoing, every day and without stopping, from the smallest things..." - Duong Thuy frankly said.

Những vết thương thời đại trong Di chứng của Dương Thụy - Ảnh 4. — Thuy tells her story, in which individuality and collectiveness coexist - Photo: H.VY

The art of suggestion and confrontation

According to artist and curator Phan Trong Van, what is special is that Thuy has freed the painting from traditional limits.

His works carry the spirit of Combine Painting, where the painting is no longer a pure flat surface but becomes an open structure, where multiple materials co-exist and dialogue.

It is this mixture that makes Thuy's paintings both exude a distorted Pop Art spirit, contain Munch-like obsession, and have a strong breakthrough of abstract expressionism. But in the end, no style can frame Thuy.

Những vết thương thời đại trong Di chứng của Dương Thụy - Ảnh 5. — The exhibition affirms the fierce commitment, constant experimentation and collision of an artist who refuses to accept his fate - Photo: H.VY

In many works, painting is reduced to a background role, giving way to rough materials and visual tension. Paintings reject compromised beauty to affirm another beauty: the aching beauty of loss, of memory, of existence in brokenness.

According to artist Hoang Vo, viewing the paintings in this exhibition will require time, tension, crazy experiences, memories full of worries... and reckless romance. Perhaps, the term "reading paintings" would be more complete and accurate for the works of this talented and reckless man.

The legacy therefore not only affirms Duong Thuy's creative energy but also challenges viewers to dare to go through the thorny layer to listen to the echoes of memories, to find a small space of freedom in this precarious world.