Silk painting exhibition by artist Nguyen Thu Huong: Paintings rich in femininity like the autumn breeze

Works on display in the exhibition

Nguyen Thu Huong's silk paintings recall the name of a material that can have a sculptural feel, which is foreign to the soft and fragile nature. Huong's silk does not take advantage of the shine to describe the skin nor does it spread color to make long, cloudy hair, but usually a figure with a blue or bright yellow color, a face that fades into the background, almost all the attractive features of the female body are shimmering and hidden in the decorative patterns.

A corner of the exhibition space

According to collector Tran Hau Tuan, what makes Nguyen Thu Huong's silk different is not the graphics or decorative patterns, but the ambiguity of the blocks, half-concealing and half-revealing the charm of the figure as you have just seen. The curves and lines seem to jostle, push, and dissolve into the fabric leaves, becoming fabric leaves, but there are also times when the human figure suddenly emerges as a correction. Those illusions, sometimes deep and full of hidden meaning, sometimes light as a breeze, always contain another space behind it.

The exhibition also introduces the art book of the same name The Scent of Silk (Hong Duc Publishing House, 2025), compiled by collector Tran Hau Tuan, summarizing Nguyen Thu Huong's silk painting journey after more than 15 years.

Talking about the reason for pursuing silk painting, artist Nguyen Thu Huong expressed: “At first, when I decided to choose silk as the main material, I just thought of choosing something that few people would choose, but later on I felt that I should contribute to this material, even if it was very small. From there, I learned more about silk. During the creative process, I wanted to change the viewer's perception of silk both visually and tactilely, so in addition to painting, I used manual operations such as braiding, plaiting, tying bows, tying knots... on the surface of the painting. Those were also new things for me when I discovered more about the material. In the future, I will still take advantage of the characteristics of silk, both its advantages and disadvantages, to paint, and still use familiar themes about the image of Vietnamese women.”

Works on display in the exhibition

When talking about the influence of traditional silk paintings on her works, Thu Huong shared: “I still maintain the traditional painting style, which means watercolor on silk, smoothing the silk, painting when dry and when the silk is wet, layering many colors to create a new color, or smudging and showing the Do paper behind the painting. The silk itself is very fragile and smooth, rarely used to describe the volume, light, and natural space like the way oil painting is done.”

Artist Nguyen Thu Huong

RED SUNFLOWER

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/trien-lam-tranh-lua-cua-hoa-si-nguyen-thu-huong-hoi-hoa-giau-tinh-nu-nhu-lan-gio-thu-post794764.html