VietNamNet Bridge - On the eve of his second major solo exhibition, the talented ceramicist Nguyen Khac Quan prefers to let his art do the talking.

When I arrive at Nguyen Khac Quan’s house, I am more than careful. I gingerly make my through the front yard into the house making sure I don’t stomp on top of any of the countless pieces of pottery or sculptures, which are scattered everywhere (it could be a museum of ceramic arts!) I eventually find him in his studio where he is busy putting the finishing touches to a number of ceramic items for his forthcoming solo exhibition Stream of Time to be held at the Museum of Fine Arts in Hanoi. In his small studio he is surrounded by a gas kiln, a pottery wheel, piles of clay, and bowls of enamel.

Quan lives for sculpture. Born to one of Bat Trang’s potter-families, Quan went onto graduate from the University of Industrial Fine Arts in Hanoi where he majored in sculpture. As well as working at the Fine Arts Museum, Quan produces a wide range of ceramic sculptures himself. He held his first solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Hanoi in 2002 and since then he has been working long and hard hours to create this latest body of work, which will now be unveiled in Stream of Time.

Looking at ceramic sculptures of Nguyen Khac Quan, you can see how he exploits the traditional enamel of classic Bat Trang pottery, but the decorative motifs he paints are quite modern and abstract. Other pieces explore the human condition. Dozens of chiselled heads stick out hauntingly from wooden steles both large and small. Single faces also carved from wood have been arranged across the floor.

A thousand faces stare up at the ceiling but no two faces seem alike. These souls are swept along by the stream of life and the stream of time. Quan pours his heart and soul into his work. All his work from the miniature to the major bears a characteristic sophistication. Shape and colour are perfectly balanced. Traditional techniques offer the firm foundation from which his modern artistic sensibilities can be presented.

The Stream of Time I believe will be more than an exhibition. It will be an installation of ceramic arts. The 38 ceramic statues and a thousand ceramic faces will lead you down towards this stream of the living that will be both strange and recognisable. You will find a face similar to your crying baby, your disapproving grandmother or an eloquent president. The faces express the creativeness and vitality of the artist. Quan is a leading figure not just for traditional ceramics, but contemporary art in Vietnam.

“Besides expressing the human condition, I wish to give a message that time is very valuable, so we need to make full use of it,” says Nguyen Khac Quan. “I wish to express my thoughts and imagination by moving nature through the materials of earth, water and fire.”

The Stream of Time Runs until September 24 At Museum of Fine Arts Nguyen Thai Hoc street, Hanoi.

(Source: Time-out)