HÀ NỘI — Painter Thành Chương has completed 60 paintings of roosters to celebrate the Lunar New Year of the Rooster. Using different materials, such as lacquer, oil on canvas and watercolours, Chương uses the roosters to reflect society and his own philosophy of life.

The paintings will be displayed at the Domino Art Fair, an annual event on the occasion of the Lunar New Year, scheduled to take place at Hà Nội Creative City, 1 Lương Yên Street from January 20 to 25, and at the HCM City Fine Arts Museum from February 22 to 27.

The art fair will gather more than 300 art works by about 160 Vietnamese and foreign artists. Chương is the biggest exhibitor.

This year, the art fair will bring together prominent art critics and researchers like Nguyễn Quân and Phạm Long, and leading art advisors and curators such as Trần Huy Oánh, Thành Chương, Trịnh Tuân, Lê Thiết Cương and Lê Kinh Tài in an art advisory panel.

Domino Art Fair is aimed at bringing art closer to the community. There are open areas for artists to interact with the audience. There will also be a private area for art collectors.

There will be roundtables and activities to promote Vietnamese artists at the two events in Hà Nội and HCM City. Painter Chương will have a meeting with his fans in Hà Nội to introduce his 60 rooster paintings. Those who come to the event in HCM City will be able to meet with artist Tài  to talk about animals and human beings in fine arts.

Another new feature of the Domino Art Fair is an interactive art education scheme called “School Day”, which includes a series of workshops where school children play and learn how to make creative art works from famous artists.

The art fair is organised by the RealArt organisation, founded in 2014 by artist Trịnh Minh Tiến. RealArt is an independent art organisation aimed at supporting contemporary art in Việt Nam and bringing it closer to the public in order to develop a robust and transparent domestic art market for Vietnamese people. RealArt has organised fairs around the country and connected well-established artists with new talents.

“For a long time, Việt Nam’s art market has been struggling with various problems, such as the lack of connection with local audiences or counterfeit painting incidents which cause enormous confusion for art lovers and art buyers,” said Tiến. “Within that context, our RealArt organisation’s attempt is to organise healthy and transparent art fairs to win back public confidence and bring arts closer to the art lovers.”

This year, RealArt will experiment with some new features for a so-called “secondary market” for art. A booth dedicated to RealArt’s regular customers/collectors who want to re-sell the works they bought will be erected at the art fair.

RealArt plans a series of art fairs to develop a national art fair brand for Việt Nam, which can compete with other regional reputed art fair brands like the Singapore Affordable Art Fair, Hong Kong Art Basel and Singapore Art Stage. — VNS