Manzi Art Space, in collaboration with Art Vietnam Gallery will present Không & Nghĩa/ No & Meaning, a solo exhibition by visual artist Nguyễn Minh Thành, one of the most important artists of contemporary art in Việt Nam today.

Long known in the art community for his thoughtful, introspective musings, Thành presents his life with simplicity and honesty. After 10 years of seclusion living a solitary, meditative life on a hillside in Đà Lạt, Thành has reduced his art to a simple expression of his happiness.

As the artists says, “Before, when beauty appears, I feel happy. Now, when I am happy, beauty appears”.

Born in 1971 in Hà Nội,  Thành graduated from the Việt Nam University of Fine Arts in 1996. He belongs to the first generation of Vietnamese avant-garde artists who experimented with less traditional methods of art, such as performance and installation in the 1990s and 2000s.

He later played an influential role in nurturing and shaping the subsequent development of contemporary and experimental art in Hà Nội.

Intrigued by Buddhist concerns of attachment and escape, and using mainly Chinese ink and watercolour on handmade Vietnamese dó (poonah) paper, Thành’s melancholic portraits are the results of his meditative and spiritual search for beauty, harmony and tranquility.

His Không & Nghĩa/ No & Meaning exhibition will open at 6pm, December 9, and run until January 8 at Manzi Art Space, at 14 Phan Huy Ích Street. — VNS