In the oil-on-canvas The Balcony and Lotuses, Tin juxtaposes modern and traditional Vietnamese women.

The talent of the 54-year-old painter, who is the deputy director of the HCM City Fine Arts College, was first recognised when he was 18. He has since had many solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad. He is best known for showing two sides of his subjects.

Tin exercises a notable influence not only through his painting, but also with his teaching and curating.

His earliest known work was created when Tin was 18 in 1974. Ben Suoi (On the Side of Spring), a traditional oil painting, has been collected by the Ha Noi-based Viet Nam Fine Arts Museum.

Like several of his colleagues, Tin made a decisive shift from a self-expressive personal style to a more popular style. “I wanted my art to enter the hearts of viewers of different ages and backgrounds,” said Tin.

Tin’s work is a kind of expressionism-abstractionism, but he uses a much easier interpretative style, often using the human figure, to make it more accessible.

His canvas Ban Cong va Sen (The Balcony and Lotuses), 147cm by 264cm, created in 2008 depicts a traditional young woman in an ao dai (Vietnamese traditional dress) carrying a lotus. In the painting Tin juxtaposes another image of a modern woman bathing on the balcony surrounded by dying lotuses.

He used white to highlight the pure images of girls and flowers. Critics say it is a good example of his style because it uses two subjects.

“I think art is alive. A skilled painter should breathe life into his art,” said Tin, who has won several top prizes launched by local fine arts associations.

Tin was born in Ha Noi but his native place is Quang Ngai Province. He showed his aptitude for painting when he was a child. He graduated from two leading art schools in Viet Nam: the Ha Noi Fine Arts College and HCM City Fine Arts College.

In 1995, with his canvas Song Trong Hem (Living in An Alley) Tin won the first prize in the Viet Nam Fine Arts Association contest. Two years later, he won the association’s second prize for Nhay Day (Skipping). Both works capture daily life.

Tin’s signature style is to create different sides of objects, symbols and figures to represent the world around himself. He often uses pure abstract forms saturated with colours.

In his work portraying his wife, Nu Hoa Si (The Female Painter), Tin puts a woman reclining against a background of undulating white and blue.

Tin said that his wife, artist Nguyen Thuy Huong, is his endless source of inspiration.

“We’re lucky because my husband and I can discover art and love together,” said 46-year-old Huong, a graduate of the HCM City Fine Arts College.

Huong uses acrylic on canvas to paint women and flowers.

Only a few painters are completely successful at everything they do. Tin’s energy can be seen in his work at the HCM City Fine Arts College – where he started in 1983.

“It’s easy for me at the school. In teaching I can paint,” said Tin, who believes teaching is a creative work and is a good thing for an artist to be.

“Tin’s work speaks to younger artists – don’t get too comfortable, keep challenging yourself,” said artist-critic Luong Xuan Doan, a senior official of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

VietNamNet/VNS