Artist Ngo Phi Cong: Nurturing a passion for creativity

(Baonghean) - When artist, Army Lieutenant Colonel Ngo Phi Cong (former officer of the Cultural House of Military Region 4) admitted that he was a "playful" person, I understood that this was a common trait among artists. And in his stories about his career and life, he still had the sincere humility of a soldier...

I am grateful for a winter morning like this, sitting and chatting with him in a suburban setting that easily calms the inherent sensitivities for the artist to confide, whether happy or sad, beautiful desires still appear. In the house of artist Ngo Phi Cong in Trung Thuan hamlet (Hung Dong commune, Vinh city), looking at the layer of dust of time and the color of sunshine and rain covering the oil paintings, sculptures... it is easy to think that he must be deep in thought somewhere, to make his spiritual children "stop" in the artistic life like this?!

Artist Ngo Phi Cong with his work 'Bach Dang Victory'.

Retired in 2004 from the Military Region 4 Cultural House, his lieutenant colonel salary plus the income from his wife's small shop in Vinh City was enough to support his youngest daughter's education. But for the past two years, because he has a grandchild in Laos, his wife went there to do business, so he also went there for a while. And there, he found himself a job carving and crafting fine art works from natural wood, to continue his passion, cherishing the idea of ​​creating new things when he returns to live in the country in the future... This time he returned to calculate how to repair the house, rearrange the paintings and statues that were lying around, and as he jokingly said, it was also to "fix himself"! If so, then it is not wrong to feel a hidden artistic feeling in him?

Sculptures "Old Farmer" and "Living Marker" by artist Ngo Phi Cong.

Born in 1958, in a poor farming family in Huong Son (Ha Tinh), artist Ngo Phi Cong's step into painting was almost a coincidence, but when the opportunity arose, his passion led him to make turning-point decisions. The family had only two brothers, his elder brother was handicapped, small and sickly, but loved him to the point of worship, absolutely did not let him touch the fields and worked with all his strength so that he could concentrate on studying, and he grew up with books, with dreams of the countryside.

His disabled brother also loved to draw, and was famous for his dexterity in his hometown. He once dreamed of becoming a photographer when he grew up, capturing the heart-wrenchingly beautiful moments of each dawn and sunset in his hometown. After graduating from high school, he failed to pass the university entrance exam; he joined the army in 1977, and in 1979, he left the Military Region and married a woman from Nam Dan, living in Nghe An until now...

When he returned to work at the Cultural House of Military Region 4, Ngo Phi Cong initially worked as a narrator for a mobile film projection team. Serving all the main units in the 6 provinces, wherever he went, he spent his free time immersing himself in the countryside scenery. And whether it was because the farther he went, the more he felt guilty towards his brother, but he always had strange obsessions with the fields. A pile of straw smoke, a thin figure leaning on the plowed road, the sound of buffalo hooves on the village road... anywhere would move him to tears. He wrote poetry, once "risked" going to read poetry at Vinh University; but although he realized that poetry easily conveyed the aesthetics of life to the public, he still dreamed of one day holding a brush like a real artist because he thought painting could bring people back to a specific memory space more easily. Then, in 1982, when the Military Region Cultural House opened a 6-month drawing class led by artist Nhat Le (author of the famous “Vietnam Hundred Victories” propaganda painting), he was not on the list of students, but volunteered to be a model. After 2 weeks, he asked artist Nhat Le to try drawing. Surprised and delighted by the talent of “model soldier” Ngo Phi Cong, artist Nhat Le nodded in agreement to let him quit his modeling duties to “study with him”.

That short course was enough for Ngo Phi Cong to confidently get acquainted with the brush. And this is when the "obsession with the fields" arose in him. Ngo Phi Cong told me: "Reporters, please don't laugh!... But when I learned to draw, I really liked to draw about buffaloes. I loved the plowing buffalo as much as I loved a human being. Growing up in a poor countryside, I know how important the buffalo is to the farmer. The affection between the owner and the buffalo is also so close!..." The farmer's buffalo with its round, gentle eyes, long eyelashes and four hooves always standing on the fields, village roads... in Ngo Phi Cong's paintings is liberal but full of haunting rural memories. Ngo Phi Cong said he regrets that he currently does not keep any intact paintings of buffaloes, but if one day he returns to the brush, he will continue to draw buffaloes. I share with you that every artist should play the role of representing a aspect of life in which he sees a humane beauty...

Perhaps the biggest turning point for artist Ngo Phi Cong was in 1985, when he and a delegation from the Military Region Cultural House went to participate in an exhibition and fine arts exhibition at the Hue Museum. There, he met a number of painters who were lecturers at the Hue University of Fine Arts who came to help the delegation repair some damaged statues. Immediately after that, he asked the leadership to let him stay in Hue to study for 3 months and surprisingly, that course he passed the entrance exam to the Hue University of Fine Arts with the highest score, meeting the standards to study in the former Soviet Union, with the condition that he had to leave the army. But he decided to pursue an artistic career associated with military life... In 1990, after finishing his studies, Ngo Phi Cong returned to work at the Military Region Cultural House, painting many watercolor and oil paintings with 2 themes: the countryside and the people's armed forces.

During that period, although he had many creative plans, with his duty as a soldier, Ngo Phi Cong worked hard to build a grassroots cultural life, opening a drawing class every year for students who were soldiers in various units to study to serve propaganda work... until around 2000, he started to work on sculpture and had certain creative sublimations. With his wood sculptures, Ngo Phi Cong continuously won awards in competitions and exhibitions in the region and provinces in Military Region 4 (including a Second Prize, Ho Xuan Huong Literature and Arts Award of Nghe An); Typical paintings include "Bach Dang Victory", "Old Farmer", "Peace"... Ngo Phi Cong shared that he did not go through the war as a soldier, but read in books and newspapers about female volunteers who used the calves of their young girls as living markers for army vehicles to pass through tunnels at night, which moved him to create the sculpture "living marker" known to the sculpture world and included in the photo book of the Vietnam Fine Arts Association...

Admitting that he is a playboy and a poor money maker, artist Ngo Phi Cong also understands the price of a living for the art world. He said he really wishes to immerse himself in the creative atmosphere of his colleagues at the provincial Literature and Arts Association, but he hesitates because of the common mentality that in painting or sculpting, there are too few colleagues in the profession in the province, and there is no environment for assessment and honor; the public is still too few at exhibitions... To reach the limit of artistic value depends largely on the talent of the artist, but the creative environment is also important. Having been in Laos for two years, every day he puts all his feelings into the handicraft products made from forest tree roots, both as a temporary way to make a living and to continue his passion, artist Ngo Phi Cong cherishes the idea of ​​returning to a recent art exhibition in Nghe An with a sculpture that, as he said, is only to express his deep affection for his homeland in the Central region. He revealed the name of the work is "Flash Flood" with materials combining plastic pipes, bamboo, wood...

What does not allow him to lose his passion for creativity and desire to contribute to art, to him, is the quality of a soldier.

Sam Temple