The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibition catalogue (APT2)

Space and apair of hands 1995 Oil on canvas 122x72cm Collection:The artist 84 I ARTISTS SOUTH AND SOUTH - EAST ASIA Dang Thi Khue gained a reputation in Vietnam as an innovator and a builder of elevated art many years ago, when little attention was paid to the role of individual creativity. In the 1980s, while engaged in social work, she and several other young artists did much to change Vietnamese plastic arts activities. This has resulted in artists being free to choose an appropriate style, their works becoming available on the market and their talents being made public. This activity absorbed a lot of Dang Thi Khue's time, so she did not paint much. Since the beginning of Doi Moi (renovation policy) in 1988, Vietnam's plastic arts, especially painting, have outstripped all the remaining domestic arts. The artist's impressionistic style associated with cubism accounts for her achievements, especially in the themes of war. Figures and shapes are drawn clearly, yet at the same time they seem to be diluted in a multidimensional space. Born into a family of Confucian scholars, Dang Thi Khue has inherited cautiousness from her family and an affection for traditional culture. She is endowed with an intense femaleness and her ideas are far more audacious than those of male artists. Dang Thi Khue has ambitiously conceived of a rational view of the nature of art and its origin. Her ideas have materialised in a series of oil paintings whose inspiration stems from indigenous Vietnamese art. These works may be classified according to various themes, such as space and the hands, women, ethnic decorative designs, nude figures and seats. Each theme is systematically expressed in several works and painted with a transcendental spirit. The shifting of a three-dimensional space into sensitive patterning seems to be inspired by North Vietnam's traditional art. The contrast between various degrees of shades and colours and plain, vacant patches evokes something illusory and chimerical. The contrasting feelings of hollowness and solidity, firmness and inclination, of an object that is falling or being collected, and the inner and outer sensations, are all vaguely depicted; their transformation makes up the unity of the picture itself. Dang Thi Khue's works are highly structured. The gradual shift of structural concept through each individual and elaborate painting aims at shaping a style of her own. The artist wants the work to be unique and unprecedented, because it contains the primitive character that embraces metaphysical and visual impressions. Phan cam ThuOng, Art History Researcher and Art Critic, Hanoi, Vietnam