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A month-long feast of art from Indonesia, Vietnam

Madhur Tankha

The works of these artists are seldom seen in India

A MIXTURE OF INFLUENCES: A work of art on display.

NEW DELHI: A month-long exhibition by artists from Indonesia and Vietnam opened at C-11 Main Market of Vasant Vihar here on Friday.

Titled "Southeast Asian Art", the exhibition showcases both figurative and abstract works. The mediums used are lacquer on wood and mixed media on canvas.

Organised by Galleria, the exhibition displays works of artists Joni Kurnia, Aryana and Buda from Indonesia and Binh, Nguyen Minh Phuoc and Quan from Vietnam. Seldom seen in India, their art reflects a mixture of influences.

While Buda's unique feature lies in the presence of "dynamic tension" fusing with space imagery, lines and colours, Aryana's works are coloured abstract renditions of city development.

Joni is also inspired by the reality of city architecture but his compositions tend to be flat with different tints of one colour.

In strong contrast are the Vietnamese artists who were influenced by the Chinese and the French during the colonial period. Binh says: "Fine art is not about philosophy or literature but about music".

On the other hand, a big source of inspiration was Japanese poetry. Like a Haiku poem where a few lines can carry a lot of meaning, his paintings unveil meaningful images executed in simple but poignant brush strokes.

The monks are captured in Nguyen Minh Phuoc's paintings in a variety of situations -- praying, going to the Pagoda or begging for food in a stylistic and simple manner. Quan's skills as a "lacquer artist are indisputable", though his most important contribution is probably his innovations in terms of texture, movement and substances. He is the first lacquer painter who has created dynamic lacquer paintings where the actions of the subject matter, often female bodies, tend to move towards abstraction.

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