Young artist Nguyen Van Dong: 'What else can I do besides drawing!'

(Baonghean) - Nguyen Van Dong said so when I asked the young artist from Nghe An who just won an award at the 2016 Capital Fine Arts Exhibition if he had any plans for the upcoming journey? Dong's answer made me laugh and admire him, because I understand that for an artist, burning to the end with passion is the most wonderful thing.

Young artist Nguyen Van Dong.

Born in 1990 in Quynh Phuong ward, Hoang Mai town, Nguyen Van Dong had a sweet childhood associated with the sea. Hoang Mai town is near Quynh beach, so this peaceful and romantic beach has become an indispensable part of the deepest memories of Nguyen Van Dong's childhood.

Like many other children in the area, Dong used to go to Dragon Mountain Cave to see the stalactites, stand in Gieng Troi Cave to look out at the vast, sunny Quynh beach, and then ride his bike to Con Temple in the afternoons… I can’t tell you all the memories of my childhood in my hometown. Now, every time I return home, Dong still wishes he could be a child again, running barefoot on Quynh beach, walking towards the sea so that the white foaming waves could welcome him into their arms.

"Waiting for Mom" ​​- oil painting by Nguyen Van Dong.

Nguyen Van Dong chose oil paint as the main material in his works. Dong's forte is portraiture, especially portraiture of children. There have been many portrait painters, many of whom have become famous, created their own style and made an impression on the public. Dong still chooses this path, because even when he was still in school, many teachers also found Dong's portraits beautiful, and Dong was extremely interested in conveying not only the form but also the spirit, soul and character of the character into the painting.

“When drawing a portrait, I always try to find the spirit of the person being drawn. What I like best is to draw directly, meaning having the model sitting in front of me, rather than drawing a portrait from a photo. The painting will be much more open and emotional,” Dong said.

Portraiture, however, is a separate field, and Dong’s works are another success, although most of them are also about children. In the painting that just won an award from the Hanoi Fine Arts Association, against the gray-green background of a poor countryside, children in wrinkled clothes stand next to each other among the rubble of a house or a tent that has been dismantled. The dark, sad blue of the sky makes the painting haunting.

In the painting “Waiting for Mom”, a little girl wearing a red coat is sitting with her eyes looking into the distance. In the painting “Friendship”, a little girl is depicted carrying a cat on her back, holding a pack of instant noodles in her hand, her eyes also looking into the distance as if searching for something there…

"Summer Noon" - oil painting by Nguyen Van Dong.

I asked Dong if he often painted about his hometown. Dong said that Quynh beach was a great source of inspiration when he painted about the land where he was born. Dong turned on his computer and showed me two paintings called “Summer Noon” depicting two children playing with the ocean waves. “That’s Quynh beach,” Dong said. And one could see in the painting a pristine beach with jagged rocks, clear blue water lapping against the silvery shore. Two little girls were playing with the waves and the sea breeze. I could hear their laughter mixed with the sound of the waves, on a summer afternoon.

Choosing a realistic painting style, Nguyen Van Dong brings viewers vivid, familiar paintings without causing obsession with copying. Dong's use of color is very soft, soothing to the eyes, the color is thin but has enough vibration, the brushwork is blurred but still has enough depth. People feel light, comfortable and pleasant when looking at Dong's paintings, because in addition to the romance and harmony of the colors, it also evokes the gentleness and sophistication of the brushwork.

Having just graduated from the Vietnam University of Fine Arts in June 2016, Nguyen Van Dong chose Hanoi to stay and pursue his artistic career. For Dong, that path is as long as his entire life, and plans are full of urging the young artist to carry them out.

When I asked Dong if he had any plans for the near future, he smiled: “I don’t know how to do anything else besides drawing.” I like artists’ answers like that. After all, art requires commitment and in a certain sense, the work is the only thing an artist needs to aim for and perfect. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if playing music was the only thing a violinist or pianist could do, and the same goes for a painting and the painter, for a statue and the sculptor, for a poem and a poet?

And surely the passion was so great that Dong could believe that he had only one path: to pursue painting. Although more than anyone, the Nghe An boy understood that it was a very difficult path. Then, on a sunny autumn day, sipping a cup of green tea on the sidewalk in Hanoi, the young artist told me that if one day he could no longer paint, the world would be like a blank canvas.

Quynh Lam