"Flutist" painted with oil on canvas, one of the 53 paintings on display at the exhibition. Photo courtesy of Nguyễn Quang Thiều

HÀ NỘI Fifty-three paintings by Nguyễn Quang Thiều, president of the Vietnamese Writers' Association, are on display in his first solo exhibition called Flutist at the Việt Nam University of Fine Arts in Hà Nội.

Flutist includes 53 paintings in oil, watercolour and pastel, showing his various imaginations of the flute.

There are also other images repeated in his works, mostly the symbolic images of villages such as ceramic pots and gourd plants.

For a long time, Thiều has been known as a famous writer, poet, as well as artist in both music and painting.

He has had paintings exhibited in many art exhibitions and drawn illustrations for his poems and for other writers. But this is his first solo exhibition.

“The name of the exhibition is also related to a story in my life. Those were the days when I had a sadness that I couldn't get rid of," Thiều said.

“One morning a blind flutist passed by where I sat for coffee. With all due respect, I asked him to play a song that I liked best. He looked at me for a long time with his blind eyes and finally he did it."

“That tune changed me. The troubles in my heart for so long have disappeared,” said the 64-year-old.

“In the months that followed, I was always sitting at that sidewalk hoping to see the blind flutist again. But I never saw him again,”

According to Thiều, the flute can be formed in very diverse ways in the imagination.

“In one painting, my flute is like a normal flute, but in another, they are stretched and bent like trees.”

“I also drew the flute curled up like snakes, and in another picture, there seem to be some pages of writing on the flute,” he added.

Thiều started painting in 2005 and had his first paintings in group exhibition with other writers at the Việt Nam Fine Arts Museum in 2005. Then he stopped painting until 2012.

After that, he attended many exhibitions with a group of artists called G39.

The exhibition, organised by the group of Nhân Sỹ Hà Đông with artist Lê Thiết Cương as a curator, will last until January 15 at 42 Yết Kiêu Street in Hà Nội. VNS