To be hard of hearing and slow to react due to age and poor health, but senior painter Duong Tuan Kiet was very agile and funny when he talked about painting. He said beautiful women inspired him in painting.

At the opening ceremony of his personal exhibition on May 21, at Tu Do Gallery in HCM City, answering the question “why his paintings often have slender girls?”, he said: “Women are among beautiful and precious creatures that the Creator gives the world. Their beauty makes the life more poetic. Perhaps, so I often paint beautiful girls”.

Of the 28 lacquer paintings at the ongoing exhibition, many describe the beauty of Vietnamese girls. An oval face of a young girl appears vaguely among flowers, a girl with bobbing hair, a sad woman in front of a church bell tower, etc.

“They are not a specific girl, but beautiful images that I saw somewhere and then they went into my paintings,” the 61-year-old painter said.

Apart from beautiful girls, the painter also drew scenes in daily life, for example a market, buffalo boys, the noon at Hoi An ancient town, etc.

Due to an accident when he was young, Kiet cannot hear well, but painting has compensated this shortage. His paintings are not only full of colors but also the sound and melodies of life.

It is very interesting that at the first look, Kiet’s lacquer paintings look like oil paintings. The reason is that he skipped the last task in lacquer – polishing. His paintings, therefore, don’t look smooth like traditional lacquer paintings, but they look more truly and friendly.

Duong Tuan Kiet was born in 1940 in the southern province of Long An. In 1959, he attended a pre-university class at the Gia Dinh Fine-art College. He could not afford to study at this college after that, so he worked as a background painter for cinemas in Saigon, like Dai Nam, Kinh Thanh and Nguyen Van Hao and some cai luong troupes until 1975.

After 1975, he began his painting career. He drew silk and then oil and lacquer paintings.

He had a passion for lacquer paintings. He has lived on paintings, not other jobs. His lacquer artwork have been introduced at many domestic and international exhibitions, including Vietnam Peace in Art in Washington (USA), Vision from Vietnam in London (UK), A New Age and the exhibition of lacquer paintings by 27 outstanding Vietnamese painters at the Vietnam Art Museum in Hanoi, HCM City, in Colorado, California and Hawaii (USA).

His exhibition at Tu Do Gallery, 53 Ho Tung Mau, District 1, HCM City will last until June 21.

Some paintings exhibited at Tu Do Gallery:

Duong Tuan Kiet and his “Young Girl” painting.

Playing flute, lacquare painting by Duong Tuan Kiet.

Young girl and fishes.

Paper flowers.

Meditation.

Northern girl.

Young girl.

Young girl, a bird and roses.

Melody.

Double dancing.

Cathedral.

Rural market.

Stilt life 1.

Nude girl and lotuses.

Kids’ game.

A buffalo boy.

Folk music.

The audiences at Duong Tuan Kiet’s exhibition.

VNE