Nguyen Quoc Chanh
Nguyen Quoc Chanh (b. 1958, Vietnam) is a poet and ceramics artist born in Bac Lieu, a province in the Mekong Delta region in southern Vietnam. He creates surreal and alluring ceramics that incorporate the abstract lyricism of his well-known poetry into a solid, tangible form, resulting in works that oscillate between artisanal craft and conceptual art. Local clay and glazes from his hometown of Bien Hoa situate the work within Vietnam, whilst diverse visual references transcend any one cultural or political context.
Chanh has published four collections of poems: Night of the Rising Sun (1990), Inanimate Weather (1997), Of Metaphorical Identity (2001) and Hey, I’m Here (2005). In 2018 Chanh presented Guerilla Tactics at MoT+++, a solo exhibition of ceramic works curated by Dinh Q. Le.