Oil-on canvas painting entitled Bóng Mặt Trời (Sunken Sun) by artist Nguyễn Duy Hòa at his first solo exhibition. — Photo courtesy of the artist

HÀ NỘI — Artist Nguyễn Duy Hòa’s first solo exhibition opened at Việt Nam Museum Fine Arts yesterday.

The exhibition, entitled Bóng Mặt Trời (Sunken Sun), displays 70 oil-on-canvas paintings that the artist created over seven years.

A graduate of the National College of Art Education and Việt Nam Fine Arts University, Hòa is among Vietnamese artists who have managed to define and stay true to their own artistic characteristics since the start of their career.

At his first solo exhibition, Hòa displays paintings depicting the scenery of outlying areas, including his home in Đan Phượng District, Hà Nội.

“Through painting, I want to tell the stories from Hà Nội’s outlying areas,” Hòa said.

“This is a broad topic with many of my memories of my homeland. These are field-stretching along the riverbank from Đan Phượng District to the end of Song Phương dyke.”

His subject matter is almost exclusively the quiet life of his home, the northwestern suburbs of Hà Nội.

After a decade, Hòa has defined his artistic expression and become bolder in individuality.

His paintings include the interplay of figuration and abstraction, with a distinctive vocabulary of compositions, forms, colours and symbols.

There are five paintings depicting fields of maize at the exhibition. There are many fields of maize in the suburbs along the Đáy River between the two districts of Đan Phượng and Hoài Đức.

“Maize is something that is both familiar and mysterious to me,” Hòa said. “This is also my feeling about the world.”

The exhibition curator is Ace Le, master of art in Museum Studies & Curatorial Practices from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

It runs until October 6 at the Việt Nam Fine Arts Museum, 66 Nguyễn Thái Học Street. — VNS