Ever felt intimidated by the confines of a blank page? Not a problem for abstract painter Tran Nhat Thang, who thrives on defying borders with his art.

Thang does not design or decorate houses, but give him a blank sheet of A4 paper and ask him to draw freely, he will definitely draw beyond its borders. He is an artist, a painter who loves to work with over-sized toile as his canvas.

Among the crowd, Thang is easy to recognise: he has a pony-tail, big eyes, and a collection of tinkling silver bracelets on his wrist. He is known as a collector of ancient motorbikes; a follower of Indian

Thang prepares for his latest exhibition, ‘The portrait of freedom’.Most of the paintings are in black acrylic using brooms.

“Do you see that car?” he asks me on our first meeting at a coffee shop, where we sat in the garden facing a noisy street. “I think of tying a big brush behind that car. Can you imagine what would happen next? When the car moves, the brush would leave lines behind it, turning the street into a huge canvas,” Thang concludes.

At first I feel like he wants to impress me from the first moment, with a strange things such as over-sized paintings, abstract thought and now this sudden idea. Then, a light flashes in my mind: for this man, everything is spontaneous.

I imagine that one day Thang found a big brush, and then to use it he searched for a big canvas. Perhaps this moment is the simple reason he continues to paint over-sized works, rather than something more profound or complicated in his mind.

I recall Thang’s latest exhibition, which included 39 over-sized paintings (the biggest was at least 10sq.m). However, the size is not what left the most impression. Mostly in black and white, only a few dotted with red and brown, the paintings looked as if they had been created with raindrops of black ink from out of nowhere. The ink spots were extremely lively, as if they were still spraying fiercely into the air, extending even much further beyond the edges of the paintings. A feeling of freedom invaded my soul, and a question was provoked. “Did everything come together with the intent of the artist, or was it all by accident?”

“I drew that painting when my brush was out of ink,” Thang grins while explaining how he created one of the works I like best among his 39 paintings. I found the lines in this piece very ethereal, for it looks as if a waft of grey smoke has just passed by.

Contemplation of Thang’s black-and-white paintings may lead to the feeling of travelling to a supernatural region, but to learn about the toile he uses to create his art leads one to the ordinary: he uses huge brushes, bamboo brooms and even feather dusters. According to Thang, anything can be a tool, as long as it fits well in his hands.

“I think the size of the tool or the brushes is not important. What does matter are your ideas,” Thang says.

Sometimes, Thang confides, he has no ideas and no inspiration. He even stopped creating art for several years because he couldn’t find them. Fortunately the ideas came back; Thang has had eight solo exhibitions, and is currently working with a sense of freedom.

“It has actually been a long process. In my first exhibition, I remember I used most of the colours I had. But the more I painted, the less colours I used and the less complicated the layout became. The simplicity in my paintings now is what I like best,” Thang reveals.

As a graduate of Ha Noi’s Fine Arts University in 1996, Thang immediately shocked the public with his first abstract painting exhibition, which he shared with an Australian artist. Apart from the huge sizes, his paintings used strange materials, which included tatters, paper and fabric.

“I threw everything I had into my paintings,” Thang says.

After more than 30 exhibitions abroad, it was not until Thang read the works of Indian philosopher Osho that his paintings became simpler in the use of colours and materials.

It was these paintings that helped Thang be selected as one of the top 30 finalists for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in Hong Kong and Singapore. To Thang, his paintings do not follow the rules of reason and experience.

Well-known artist Le Thiet Cuong once remarked, “Thang only paints his feelings, his heart, his soul – he scrutinises his inner-self to this effect. Such things cannot be expressed in any other way but abstraction.”

“My fondness for abstractionism was inspired by a teacher at Ha Noi’s Fine Arts University. However, it took me 13 years to thoroughly understand abstractionism. Many of my viewers still refuse what they see.”

Thang says that it’s not common for an artist to earn his living with abstract paintings. Many people only like paintings they can understand, while abstractionism is difficult to capture.

Luckily Thang successfully sold some of his works. In Thang’s exhibition “Alone,” 11 out of the event’s 20 paintings sold. However, none of them were bought by a Vietnamese.

“That’s why I called the exhibition ‘Alone’,” Thang jokes.

Choosing to free himself through painting, hopefully this ‘the-world-is-not-enough’ artist will find no limitations in his art, and no boundaries to his inspiration – to follow his path to its rightful end.

VietNamNet/VNS