The Artist

1944 Vietnam

Nguyen Van Hung was born in Vietnam but immigrated to Europe like so many Vietnamese seeking refuge from war and poverty.

Although the artist works in many different mediums, paper, sculpture, oil on canvas, the works themselves are studies of his inner world, his sense of humanity and the value of his own existence.

“Nguyen Van Hung is mad”…declares friend and filmmaker Jean Van Dormael, “fortunate for him and for all of us.”

Madness and wisdom, Yin and Yang, Thanatos and Eros – the continuous struggle and tension between life and death, darkness pierced by light; this question of our very existence has long preoccupied the consciousness of this so declared madman.

Following poet and philosopher Keats’ concept of “Negative Capability” – “When a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason”, Hung responds to stimuli with a boundless energy and optimism despite the harsh realities. Relentless truth is the river that flows in the mind of the artist.
Beauty or no beauty is not the question nor the intent. The work of the artist is a retreat into the mind, back to the simple and yet profound question of existence and what lies beyond. A spiritual search, bound not to any secular religion. Ever probing into the unknown, these fragments we see are the utterances of his soul…just as his fellow Belgian poet, writer and artist Henri Michaux’s poems are “messages from his inner space.”

Hung started exhibiting in Europe in Belgium in 1985, soon followed by exhibitions at the K Gallery in Washington D.C., USA in 1992. Hung continued to exhibit in Europe and the USA and then in 2011, the artist returned to Vietnam and began to exhibit in HCMC.
The artist divides his time between HCMC and Bruxelles and continues to exhibit internationally.

Yin and Yang, bronze sculpture, 2012 is a work from his solo exhibition Terra Igcognita at The Eight Gallery in HCMC, Vietnam.