Artist Bùi Đức Thành at his second solo exhibition. Photo hanoimoi.vn

After 15 years of pursuing yoga, Bùi Đức Thành has found his own new path, creating images of woman doing yoga poses, made with a variety of materials including silk, ceramic and bronze.

He has just finished his second solo exhibition, displaying 45 silk paintings and 18 sculptures to highlight the physical and spiritual beauty of women.

Could you tell us about the works at the exhibition?

Yoga and the zodiac is a theme that I have been pursuing. Last year, I drew a painting combining yoga posture and a dragon on the occasion of Lunar New Year. 

Spring brings new growth and life. At my solo second exhibition, I displayed a set of three paintings including one with a wild banana flower in the middle. Banana flowers symbolise for proliferation and each side of that are paintings of a yoga cobra posing and a woman doing yoga in a natural landscape.

I have practiced yoga for 15 years. As a yoga practitioner, I feel a lot of positive energy, especially in the spring season, and I want to inspire that to visitors. Through the beauty of yoga and the beauty of women doing difficult yoga postures, I want to convey to everyone that people are always led to truth, beauty and goodness. 

How do you capture the contrast between the softness of silk painting and the solidity of bronze and ceramic sculptures?

Silk is a Vietnamese traditional material. The veteran artists always drew bold and monochromatic colours and they washed the silk painting several times. I try to break the traditional style to paint silk with different colours.  

The exhibition also introduces two silk paintings with experimental cubism, using the shapes of triangles and diamonds. 

I began with sculpture by chance. In 2018, one of my friend and I went to Bát Tràng Ceramic Village. While my friend did his work, I played with the clay and I became fascinated by pottery. My colleagues supported me and they said my sculptures have my own personality. 

It encouraged me to create sculptures and paintings on yoga theme. My first solo exhibition was in 2023 and now I want to continue the yoga honouring physical body of women in yoga postures. 

'Warrior', a bronze sculpture by Bùi Đức Thành. Photo tapchimythuat.vn

Have you changed from your first to the second solo exhibitions?

I have joined group exhibitions with other artists. During the pandemic years, I made a lot of paintings and sculptures and so it was a chance to show that work with my first solo exhibition. I am really moving and sometimes I surprised myself because I have done a huge amount of work in more than two years, nearly 100 pieces. I chose more than 50 works for the first solo exhibition. One thing that makes me joyful is that 40 per cent of my works were sold. 

At the second one, I have changed a little bit of expressing form to create more depth in painting while the language of paints is so much clearer. I think that people always have a desire to conquer and improve and that is what I am doing.

You graduated from the National University of Art Education in 1978 and the Việt Nam University of Fine Arts in 1993. Could you tell why you waited until you were 68 to have your first solo exhibition?

You know, it was very hard time at the state economic subsidy period. I am a fine arts teacher and I had to spend much time earning my living. My first wife passed away in 2003, so I had been raising my children on my own. 

I was exhausted with office and family work so I could not have time to create art. However, I still displayed at the group exhibitions with my colleagues during that time. Then when I retired and when my children were grown up, I have had time for myself to live and to paint. At the present, I feel I don't have time enough for more creations. - VNS