Nguyen Trung’s Expression on Boi Tran’s Exhibition: I and the Call from My Within


Nguyen Trung — Vietnamese Artist, Co-founder, Young Artists Association in Ho Chi Minh City (1996)

Boi Tran, with a sensible heart and the gifted talent of an artist, fully perceives the artistic and literary beauty of nature that comes right out from her magnificent garden and then conveys that beauty most aesthetically to her works.


“To the best of my ability as an artist, I’d like to express my greatest gratitude to what life has graciously given me over the time. The generosity that I am granted and thus being thankful to might very wel be as simple, yet ful of blessings, as a prayer to our sacred Mother, a Mother-and-child’s perpetual love, or the graceful beauty of the nature such as the first day-breaking sunrays or residual dew of the night. I treasure these precious moments like the lotus of hope joyful lighting up my life.”
Boi Tran

Maternity, Boi Tran (Vietnamese, B. 1957), signed ‘Btran’ (lower right), oil on canvas,
130 x 100 cm. (51 3/16 x 39 3/8 in.), painted in 2004

NGUYEN TRUNG’S EXPRESSION

Amongst various subjects expressed in Boi Tran’s creation and passion for art, her favourite interpretation is depictions of the feminine beauty of Vietnamese women, pure maternity, and poetic nature.

Maternity, as always, is the most sacred bond compared to any other human sentiment because of its intenseness and profundity. Deeply rooted in the dearest son’s passing, her paintings illustrate the sorrow of losses. One could easily find images such as a mother dearly holding a child in her arms, a woman standing by the ocean desperately waiting for a miracle, or signs of her son to come home or, in some other pieces are the images of a woman looking up to the sky with her hands drawn together as if she is praying for the day of reunion with her child. Completely carried away in her world where sadness, solitude, and reminiscences of the old happy-together days’ reign. The facial expression, however, especially her eyes is so radiant with love and faith. Perhaps, when people are taken to the lowest point of desperation, they will learn to realize the beauty from within desperation itself that helps compliment the other extreme of human emotions.

As mentioned, nature is another main source of inspiration for artist Boi Tran’s works. Currently residing on Thien An Hill – one of the most beautiful landmarks of Hue where it is known for its endless rows of evergreen trees – Boi Tran, with a sensible heart and gifted talent of an artist, fully perceives the artistic and literary beauty of nature that comes right out from her magnificent garden and then conveys that beauty most aesthetically to her works. Lotus and Hoa Quynh (a white orchid that only blossoms when the night falls and fades away when the sun rises) are her two favourite flowers and thus are often present in her works of art. Perhaps in these flowers, she perceives the two most fundamental principles of life: the highest purity and the uncertainty.

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