The Artist

1978 Hanoi Vietnam

Nguyen Van Phuc is an up and coming artist who is gaining attention not only for his beautifully executed works but also for his acuity and mature understanding. An artist whose young years belie his wisdom and acceptance of the vagaries of life, Phuc takes a humorous and playful posture in his work.
Phuc in Vietnamese means happiness. Phuc, in his unequivocal quixotic manner poses this pondering question…My name is Happiness?

The works that composed his first solo exhibition, My Name is Happiness? at Art Vietnam Gallery in 2010, presented many questions for the viewer to reflect upon. A convinced figurative artist whose draftsmanship is to be admired for its precision, Phuc uses a muted palette founded on a strict observation and internalization of things and people in a dreamlike atmosphere. Time is frozen; the traffic of life is stilled mystery.

His works of oil on canvas reveal a beauty that is naked, not hidden, rough, not sweet. The basic instincts of man are expressed exposing all the contradictions and ugliness, the silly, strange, and challenging action of man. The works disclose the mixed feelings that imprison man and build pressure from within. As man tries to break free from these feelings the action may be funny or not funny at all, for underneath there is a deep sadness. Only when man breaks free by struggling inside to reach the absurd does he begin to move toward happiness.

There is a deep feeling of isolation in Phuc’s works, in man’s inability to find a connection with society, an alienation from mankind. Everyman has moments in life when all is meaningless, all is an illusion. This struggle for balance and meaning in life are the cornerstones of Phuc’s work. Viewing Phuc’s works we can gain insight by exploring this young artist’s existentialist view of the meaning of life, for as Albert Camus opined, “We do not know how to see reality and all the disturbing things our apartments, our loved ones, and our streets conceal.”