Nguyen Thi Chau Giang was born
in Hanoi in 1975 and graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City
College of Fine Arts in 1998. In
her upcoming exhibition
Hidden Flowers, her first
solo show since 2004, and her first solo
exhibition of silk paintings, Nguyen Thi Chau Giang looks back to
her Vietnamese artistic roots as she explores the formal
issues of traditional silk painting. In constructing her
visual narratives, Giang draws on sources both classic and
contemporary as she mediates on the typical Vietnamese
feminine archetype. Well versed in feminist theories that
impact contemporary Vietnamese society, she resists
infiltrating her work with the seduction of poetic
embellishments as she circumvents typical romantic
narratives commonly associated with Vietnamese silk
painting. All of these works
explore the fragility of relationships and emotions with a
sensitive eye, and they are engaging for that reason. But
their formal deftness is also remarkable, as is the richness
of their pictorial nuance, which amplifies the psychological
interest of the works without drifting into melodrama.
Silk paintings originated in China, and a handful
of Vietnamese artists have adopted the art form to produce
compelling contemporary art works. Giang
has participated in several exhibitions internationally,
such as in Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Australia,
Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom and the USA, including
a solo show at the Columbia University, New York. Her works
are found in the museum collections of the
Singapore Art Museum
and the State
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
