Nguyen Thai Tuan
Nguyen Thai Tuan (1965–2023, Vietnam) graduated from the Hue University College of Arts in 1987 and was one of Vietnam’s most significant artists of his generation, whose artistic practice was anchored in the symmetry of fullness and absence. For Thai Tuan, the relationship between space and objects, and body and matter, was of unquestionable importance.
In the monograph on Nguyen Thai Tuan, the Italian art critic Demetrio Paparoni states: “Against the backdrop of Nguyen Thai Tuan’s paintings there is always Vietnam, with its symbolic places and its history. The stories in these pictures draw upon real events, news images and images of daily life that are normally filtered through photographs, newspapers, television or the Internet. While always referring to historical events and real occurrences, the subject of his works is not the event as such, but rather its repercussions that generate the shadowy areas in the psyche of the individual while influencing that individual’s everyday life. Accordingly, Nguyen Thai Tuan’s interest is directed towards the behaviors and the existential dynamics of both those who induce these events and those who endure them. In remarking that current condition as the result of the sedimentation of historical events and happenings, Nguyen Thai Tuan intermingles the past and the present, rendering the painting a critical space in which his reflections take shape.”
Nguyen Thai Tuan held many solo exhibitions worldwide, including Interior & Black Souls, Virtual Exhibition, Primo Marella Gallery, Milan, Italy, 2021; Black painting, Primae Noctis Art Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland, 2015; Heritage, Primo Marella Gallery, Milan, Italy, 2014; Fullness of Absence, San Art, HCMC, Vietnam, 2011; Black Painting, San Art, HCMC, Vietnam, 2008; and Black Painting, New Discovery, SH Contemporary, Shanghai, China, 2008. His paintings are held in renowned collections, including Queensland Art Gallery Foundation, Queensland, Australia; Fondazione Golinelli, Boglona, Italy; KADIST; Fondation Francès, Senlis, France; Maison Particuliere, Brussels, Belgium; Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney, Australia; Tiroche DeLeon Collection, UK; Bordoli Collection, Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy; and Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts, HCMC, Vietnam.