Known for his photo collections named “Portraits of Politicians” and “Vietnam Viewed from the Air”, photographer Gian Thanh Son is going to introduce a special photo-painting album.

Gian Thanh Son.

The two photo albums “Portraits of Politicians” and “Vietnam Viewed from the Air” have helped Gian Thanh Son enter the Vietnam Record Book, though he didn’t start off intending to set records. The reputed photographer has announced he will release a photo-painting collection, which is both familiar and strange.

Son’s old apartment is full of documents and photos that he has produced or collected for three decades. Looking at his new photo-painting collection, one would think that he or she is beholding real paintings.

Each photo-painting work has its own lay-out and colours. All of them look vaporous, requiring viewers to imagine. An old pagoda, a spacious grassland, the portrait of an AO child victim, and dancers, everything is clear but very vague.

“I have tried to deliver a message through each photo. For example, the black-and-white photo-painting work named “Mother Figure” features an old house next to a bending and skinny tree, which suggests the image of a strenuous mother,” he said.

His works recall beautiful memories of childhood, with old wharves, windows of a village school, the skinny figure of a strenuous mother, and the simple beauty of southwestern girls.

“I love drawing. I attended a painting course over two decades ago, but after that I only drew propaganda paintings. I need many things, and the most important is a vast space, to draw lacquer paintings. I really don’t have these conditions. So I draw on the computer,” the artist said.

Working hard for several years in his small apartment, on his computer, Gian Thanh Son is about to introduce his third photo-painting album.

Boh Tree and Spiritual World

Corner of the Eye and The Legend

Anecdote

Mother Figure

Night Theatre

Vietnamese Sea

Childhood

Prince and Horse

The Friend of Farmers

My Father

Samsara

The Aftermath of War

Diep Y