Nguyen Hung Son

Nguyen Hung Son is one of the artists of 6x generation in Hanoi, one of the generation which has the most dramatic changes and also has the most innovations of Vietnamese modern fine arts. His paintings often mention to social issues, the hot topics are ongoing but they are difficult to solve completely. The artistic object of Nguyen Hung Son or it can be said that his character motifs are repeated continuously with the sound of the industrial life and consumerism with characteristics of series of the successive paintings. Throughtout the art works, the artist expresses a highly general visual art language from colors to character’s imagines. Who are they? Are they poor labour people who are waiting for extra work to live during the day? Or are they children who have the paralyzed senses to the education of their parents? Are they people who call themselves businessman and only look at the stock charts all days? Are they vetarans who experienced all the wars in gunshots during their lives and now they are lost in a “peaceful and prosperous” society?

The necessary monotory in the background of the painting is the intention of the artist to make the imagine become sarcastic and frivolous. In the paintings, characters have a normal appearance typically like the imagines appearing on the press and media. Everything all together gather on a team/ group/ troop but each human face turns in a different direction and displays the unique shades and expressions: either suspicion, or surprisement, or irritation, or cold-hearted, or amazement, or threatening. Somehow, we are both ourselves in our own portraits in a society that is developing but is inescapably chaotic. This art style of Nguyen Hung Son, more than ever, it expresses the rationality and the thoughtful reflection that hidden behind the simple shape/ color combination.