A Celebration of Colours is an apt title for the ongoing exhibition of paintings by emerging and established artists from Vietnam. Barring one painting titled Reflection, which speaks volumes through tones of black, white, silver and grey, 19 other paintings grab your attention with solid hues of sunshine orange and yellow, leafy green, earthy brown, deep blue and ruby red. Yet, it's not a riot of colours but a systematic use of tones to draw the viewer into the moods and landscapes of Vietnam.
The paintings dispel the misconception that Vietnam is still a land ravaged by war and takes you on a journey beyond the famous Halong Bay. The selection of oil-on-canvas paintings can be broadly classified into landscapes, people and spiritualism.
The landscapes are tranquil, arresting and targeted at consumers who look to buy art to brighten up their homes. Minh Tai's picture-perfect painting of Sunset at Halong Bay, Tran Quan Dinh's Boat by the River, Vu co Dien's Orange and Yellow Tall Trees, Phan Thu Trang's Spring, Moonlight Night and Paddy Fields are some of the landscape paintings that come alive in bright colours that narrate a story of rural Vietnam and its agriculture spaces.
In one of his paintings, Afternoon in the Village, Phan Thu Trang paints an idyllic setting and brings out the relaxed mood of the villagers through their body language. In Minh Tuan's Harvesting, the lush yellow landscape is offset by small figures of people bent down, busy at work in the fields.
Faces and expressions come to the fore in the Buddha series and two paintings of Sapa girls (by Le Anh Dung). French artist Jacques Charrier's two paintings, United Colours of Buddhism, showing a monk clothed in blue and orange robes bring out the pensiveness, broken by silver tones in the foreground. Buddha in Calmness by Le Tien Dat, Truth by Tran Quang Tru and Search for Truth by Tran Duc Viet are worth a mention. Nguyen Cuong uses matted texture of the monks' robes in Followers to add depth to his work. Le Rosee is the only lacquer painting by an anonymous artist among the oil-on-canvas works on display.
Celebration of Colours, organised by Asian Art House and Ko Van Den Hil, is on view at The Westin Hyderabad Mindspace till March 16.
