The Artist

1967 Hanoi Vietnam

Pham An Hai comes from a family where cultural discourse was part of his family heritage. His great-grandfather Pham Dinh Ho was a noted poet who has a street in Hanoi named after him, and his grandfather, Pham Dinh Vy, an architect in Hanoi. Hai developed a strong interest in art at a very early age, an interest that sprang from his personal observation of the world around him.

As the art critic Nguyen Quan states of Hai’s first exhibition in Hanoi, “At age 30 – the age of confidence and maturity, Pham An Hai had his first exhibition of highly expressive painting in Hanoi and established himself as one of the most recognizable young artists, with a body of artwork that he termed ‘expressionistic.’ Startled eyes, mouths gaping in anger, ghastly crooked and twisted human forms, schemes of harsh color, deliberately harsh brushstrokes – all surrealistic in essence, despite their expressionistic outward appearance. The skepticism and irrationality of surrealism plus the Freudian inhibitions in these depictions were not only the reactions of his youthfulness, but were relevant to his life.”

After this successful show, Ha soon moved on to a more abstract style of painting. In 1998 his works of blurred landscapes gradually became more abstract, by using a variation of colors along with a slow rhythm of melancholy, the lines and strokes of the works create their own form of landscape.

Hai graduated from Vietnam Fine Arts University, Hanoi in 1995. He is now one of Vietnam’s most recognized artists and has participated in exhibitions in Vietnam, and extensively internationally in Australia, Belgium, Dubai, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, the UK, and the USA.