Sketching Vinh city with love for the city

One day, leisurely walking on the streets of Vinh city, you will most likely come across Tran Hoang Kim with an iron pen, watercolors and a sketchbook in hand. The 9X guy does not choose crowded, bustling addresses, but quietly goes to mossy street corners, old apartment buildings, sidewalk cafes...; and sees the simple beauty, very Vinh, that we often pass by every day without really realizing it. There is a Vinh city that is so close and extremely special appearing in Kim's sketches, making any citizen who looks at it love and miss it so much.

Tran Hoang Kim was born in 1993, from Thanh Chuong district. For the past 12 years, Kim has been studying and working in Hanoi, and only recently decided to return to Vinh city to start a career. Vinh city is not where he was born and raised, nor did he have much time to stay for the city's soul to permeate his daily life, but just the memories of a few visits to the city are enough to make Kim strangely attached to this place. Kim sees the quiet beauty of the streets, street corners, small alleys... and longs for the day when he himself will paint about this city with all his love. Now, when he returns to settle down in Vinh city, he has time to realize that dream.

Since he was a student at the Hanoi University of Architecture and later became an architect, Tran Hoang Kim has been familiar with sketching. Sketching is a form of quick writing in pictures, capturing emotions and thoughts instantly, all you need is a pen or pencil and watercolors. The convenience and suitability made Kim choose sketching as a form to draw about Vinh city, because inspiration can come suddenly while wandering around the city.

In the past few months, apart from the time spent on work, Kim has been heading out to the streets. Sometimes she slowly rides an old motorbike, sometimes she sits on the back of a motorbike taxi driver, sometimes she quietly strolls on the sidewalk... Getting used to the slow pace of life after 12 years of studying and working in a bustling city like Hanoi has given Kim time to calm down and look back at herself, and through that, deeply admire this familiar yet strange city of Vinh, listening to the streets breathing the rhythms of the city.

And Kim paints, transferring his thoughts, joys and sorrows into the strokes of his pen and paper. Quang Trung Street, Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, Dang Thai Than, Le Loi, Tran Phu… under Kim’s pen become strangely vivid. Emperor Quang Trung’s temple, Vinh citadel, Diec pagoda, Hong Son temple… appear on the paper, majestic, ancient, yet very poetic. Even the markets: Vinh market, Quang Trung market, university market… appear in Kim’s paintings with all the hustle and bustle, hustle and bustle, very real and very Vinh.

Kim drew electric poles with tangled wires cutting across the deep blue sky, drew flower carts carrying Autumn to the city, drew a peeling wall, a lonely chair in a pretty coffee shop, a row of rosewood trees leaning in the gentle sunlight...

Particularly touching are the sketches of workers: two cleaning ladies sitting and chatting after hard working hours; a motorbike taxi driver leaning on the sidewalk waiting for customers; a sticky rice vendor quickly serving sticky rice while chatting and laughing; a woman pushing a cart of fried cakes on the sidewalk, resting her chin on her hand, waiting for customers to come and buy... Kim sketches about everything that inspires him, but most of all he sketches about workers, because as he confided: "I don't know why, but I like the hustle and bustle of making a living, of the circumstances, of the hardships and wandering... Maybe there is also humanity there"!

Kim loves to read, explore and discover Vinh city, so his sketches are both informative and emotional. No matter how quickly a sketch is drawn, it is never hasty or shallow; on the contrary, the genre requires the artist to have a sharp observational mind, a solid ability to create shapes and a deep sense of life. Kim does not consider himself an excellent sketcher, but he sketches with all his love and hope for this city - the place he determined to be his second home.

Looking at Tran Hoang Kim's sketches, we feel like all our senses about Vinh city are awakened, surprised to realize that there are familiar things that are so delicately beautiful, a simple beauty hidden in the flow of life that we often do not notice. The sketches are not elaborate in lines, not complicated in color, but when looking at them, we can still clearly feel the deep, gentle soul, evoking so many stories from memories.

To date, Kim has sketched about 50 pictures of Vinh Street. To mark his affection for this urban area and to inspire and spread cultural inspiration to the city's youth, Tran Hoang Kim created a fanpage and posted his unique sketches on it. Although the fanpage was only created a few months ago, it has attracted quite a lot of people's attention, followers, and comments with many warm shares.

“Through the fanpage, many friends who love sketching, drawing and Vinh city have messaged me, talked about common topics and led to connections and interactions in real life. So in this city, I have made many new friends, more attached and nostalgic for the place I have chosen to settle down for a long time.” - Kim said.

Thanks to sketching, Kim feels like he has truly become a part of this city. During the days of wandering around “recording” the rhythm of life on the streets, Kim became a regular customer of the coffee shops in the alleys, of the sticky rice seller in front of the elementary school gate, of the motorbike taxi driver stopping under the Bauhinia tree… And he listened to their stories, just trivial daily stories, but that was existential life, the chaos of reality, the joys and sorrows… Kim listened, felt, reflected a part of his life in it, and felt like he belonged to Vinh! Reading the statuses on Kim’s sketch fanpage, he was moved by the simple language:

“Early in the morning, he saw autumn had come suddenly and hastily.

Unexpectedly, after one night, this city that is usually sunny in the morning has such a beautiful day.

Dad pushed the cart out onto the street, mom sat gathering dry firewood, warming a bowl of hot soup for Ty to take to school, the smoke wafting throughout the porch.

The weather these days leaves people with no choice but to choose peace.”

“Early morning inVinh, the scorching sun for the past half month signals the arrival of another dry summer. Dad pushes the bike out into the street, mom sits gathering firewood, reheating a bowl of green bean porridge...

The weather here is strange, it's sunny all the time but there's not a single shower.

Mom said, it's sunny until August, my child!

At this rate I can't bear to leave my hometown...”

The story about Kim, about the sketches of Vinh street is simple but evokes so many things. As Kim said, he sketches with love for the city, and cherishes the hope that in the future he will collect a special set of sketches about Vinh to print into a book. An artbook of Vinh street, waiting to be held in your hands, Kim!