What is special about his recent works is the application of traditional pattern and motif printing techniques to his paintings. More than just nostalgia, this is his way of evoking cultural memories and engaging in dialogue with history.

Nguyen The Hung, born in 1981, graduated from the Vietnam Fine Arts University in 2009. He is known for his series of poetic paintings of young women and nature. In recent years, he has shifted towards contemporary painting, combining various materials, especially the techniques of printmaking and lacquer on canvas. His works have been exhibited in many countries such as the United States, Australia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Singapore, and Thailand.

A lacquer painting by artist Nguyen The Hung, applying the stencil printing technique.

Nguyen The Hung incorporates jigsaw printing techniques into his paintings to rediscover the connection with Vietnamese cultural heritage. He selects, reconstructs, and directly prints patterns associated with temple and pagoda architecture, wooden reliefs, ancient pottery, bronze bells, and folk motifs onto the canvas using manual jigsaw printing. Instead of maintaining their illustrative nature, he allows these patterns to become independent elements, capable of telling their own stories and creating new layers of meaning when combined with colors, shapes, and abstract compositions.

In the hands of Nguyen The Hung, the stencils are transformed into a language of visual expression full of personality. These prints are not mere copies but are polished, coated, bleached, and layered with various materials such as lacquer, watercolor, do paper, gold leaf, silver leaf... Traditional patterns, when printed on the paintings, do not serve a fixed illustrative role but appear and disappear like lingering memories after countless historical upheavals.

Using stencil printing techniques allows artists to create fragmented compositions, images no longer bound by traditional logical frameworks. Patterns are broken, obscured, or restructured within the polished lacquer layers, forming interwoven layers of tradition and modernity. Viewers are invited into an open space of memory, free to imagine, assemble, recreate, and interpret.

Contrary to his seemingly free-spirited appearance, Nguyen The Hung works with high discipline. Each layer of pattern imprinted onto the painting is not merely a technical operation. The combination of the imprint with lacquer on canvas is a material he experimented with to overcome the shortcomings of traditional lacquer painting, demonstrating Nguyen The Hung's relentless efforts to take Vietnamese painting further while remaining firmly rooted in national culture.

A prominent feature in Nguyen The Hung's paintings is their non-linear compositional structure. The patterns do not follow a specific logical system or spatial order, but are freely arranged according to emotion and intuitive flow. This makes each work like an imaginary map, allowing viewers to locate and discover their own story. Solo exhibitions such as: "Begin, Everywhere"; "Cloudy Region"; "Please Be Gentle - Whispering - I Am Here"... all demonstrate how Nguyen The Hung uses the technique of stenciling to create richly layered surfaces, sometimes hazy like the mist of memory, sometimes sharp like a cut.

Sharing his journey, Nguyen The Hung said: “The ancient motifs printed in my paintings are voices from the past; they are not necessarily nostalgia but a part of life. I am simply the one who preserves that echo through my paintings, allowing viewers to continue that dialogue in their own way.” Along with his bold experimentation with lacquer on canvas to overcome the limitations of traditional lacquer in transportation and preservation, the stencil technique has helped Nguyen The Hung create a new language, ensuring that ancient Vietnamese art is not only preserved but also recreated and revived in contemporary art.

Amidst the fluctuations of the art market, the explosion of digital technology , and the trend of globalization, Nguyen The Hung's approach is pioneering, an art "rooted in tradition, branching out into modernity." Each layer of embossed patterns on his paintings is not only symbolic but also a testament to memory. The process of embossing in his painting practice becomes a dual creation, combining ancient techniques and contemporary manipulation, preservation and destruction, remembrance and forgetting.

    Source: https://www.qdnd.vn/van-hoa/doi-song/danh-thuc-hoa-van-truyen-thong-1011233