Ho Huu Thu (1940-2024)

Famous in the painting fine arts of Saigon before 1975, artist Ho Huu Thu still painstakingly and seriously creating art works in a “meditation mind” – a special and rare consciousnes in the contemporary Vietnamese fine art. In particular the artist has achieved many achievements in the field of abstract lacquer paintings, which conquering grumpy art lovers and artistic experts in both domestic and abroad. Ho Huu Thu once said: “Painting is a game of a serene soul full of truth and expresses through the magical linguistics of people are owing, are aspiring, it is the pure seal that opens up that surprising us in passion “.

For this rare talented artist, he said that he came to the painting as a spiritual emancipation, the art world he built and that it needed to reach was the world with full of transcendence, sublimation and aestheticism. Therefore in the world of his paintings, we just can see some details, objects, or images , on the other hand, the artist concentrates mainly on drawing few objects but evoking many associations, especially it is the surreal painting style and typical meditative mind of artist Ho Huu Thu in particular and Oriental painting style in general. In his paintings, the familiar motif is the woman – the lotus – the moon, sometimes appearing alone, or in pairs or all three of them forming a movable substitute in the original art named Hồ Hữu Thủ. The girls in paintings of Hồ Hữu Thủ appearing with a lot of postures, sometimes gravitate, sometimes lulling, sometimes lonely and strangely mysterious.

On the creative art paths, there are many artists embracing reality to nourish the soul but some people also let the virtual dream pour out to nourish the soul. The artist Ho Huu Thu is in the second case. Moreover, many paintings reflect the hardships of the souls, the choking cries of love have been blown out but there are many paintings as the eternal destination of music and poetry, reflecting a soul as the domain occupies harmony for virtual dreams. Ho Huu Thu is also in the second case.

His virtual world has made his art lover have more artistic ideas, unique, which breaks normal and popular artistic regulations to reach the special Meditation realm. Many people claim that the illusory realm in Ho Huu Thu’s paintings is a version of his soul, as true and natural as the empty self-nature of a person who himself giving up his ego and individuality to find the quiet status, where the source of all creativity is aroused. So what are the factors making a virtual dream in the art world of Ho Huu Thu? It is the process of forming an unconscious language through the eyes of painter’s soul, here the reality is denied to have all the lines, the mind is not the place to stay, and there are only fades making dreams and dreams have transformed into music feature and poetry feature.