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Colour of money inspires a generation of Vietnamese painters

Vietnamese art has often been regarded as light and populist in Hong Kong. But times are changing. Over the past decade, big-name artists have emerged, such as Thanh Binh and Le Than Son, whose smaller works can cost anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000.

More recently, Hanoi's leading fine-art dealers have renovated and expanded their galleries - many of which now wouldn't look out of place in Hong Kong's SoHo. Most importantly, Vietnam has nurtured a new generation of artists who are relatively unknown - and still cheap - but indicate the country's potential.

Nguyen Dinh Quang, who founded Hanoi's Thang Long Gallery in 1996, says rising prices help inspire younger artists.

'Some of the best artists' works are quite expensive now,' he says. 'Their success had been a good motivation for talented newer artists who might not have made the commitment without the growing interest in their country's art.'

He says Hoang Hai Anh is one artist to watch. Anh graduated from Hanoi Fine Art College (widely considered the country's best) in 1999, when global interest in Vietnamese art was already growing. Born into an artistic family, Anh started with a female nude series in 2000 and 2001, before moving to oil paintings of himself and his family. Thickly applied paint, often scraped onto the canvas with a palette knife, in a range of colours that contrast wildly between muted earthy hues and primary colours, evoke the Expressionist style of Austrian painter Oscar Kokoschka.

'He's been popular for the last two years,' Quang says of Anh. 'People like the bright colours and family images of the artist and his wife and son.' At the moment, some of Anh's smallest self-portraits go for US$350, with larger pieces fetching just over US$1,000.

Another Hanoi art dealer, Ngo Tan Trong Nghia, has signed up a few new artists to his Apricot Gallery. Nghia says Nguyen Van Cuong, a 28-year-old from rural Bac Giang Province, is promising. Cuong paints ethnic-minority village life and won the top prize in a nationwide competition for propaganda paintings in 1996 (Vietnam is still a communist regime). Cuong layers translucent coats of thin and predominantly blue oil to build up romantic images of mostly women.

His most recent paintings, completed in September, go beyond his usual blue and white hues. Seated women, wearing long, flowing ao dai dresses, have a greenish tinge to their mask-like faces, red highlights pushing their lips to the fore. Cuong's canvases, which have been on the market for only about a year, cost about US$1,500.

Also at Apricot are Tran Xuan Binh and Bui Van Hoan. Binh's application of oil paints varies from translucent to the thick impasto. Most striking is the distorted sense of perspective and depth of field. Using a strict palette of blue and white, he paints his subjects - again, mostly ethnic minorities - so that they blur and blend into almost psychedelic montages. Hoan paints Buddhist monasteries in layers of warm browns and orange, and conjures images of Vietnam that have, for now, escaped the rampant commercial development that's underway in many towns. He paints spartan vignettes from the daily lives of robed monks and nuns.

Some older artists have gained prominence, having started their careers in less fortunate times. Although Pham Luc, 61, was awarded a degree from Hanoi Fine Art College in 1977 and has shown overseas, he has only become 'collectable' recently, thanks to two of Hanoi's newer venues, the Vine Wine Boutique Bar & Cafe and the Vine Annex.

The Vine Wine was opened in June by the Canadian former executive chef of the Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong hotel, Donald Berger. He's such a fan that he opened the Vine Annex a few doors away as a permanent exhibition space for Luc. Private functions and wine promotions are regularly held here, with a regularly changing show of Luc's lacquer and oils. 'His work is really appealing and really under-priced,' says Berger. 'I now own around 400.'

Berger says he's impressed by Luc's work ethic. 'He never stops,' he says. 'Some of the lacquer pieces take up to nine months to complete, because this is a slow way of working. He gets boards prepared the traditional way - with burlac applied with banana leaves, some embedded with silver or gold leaf or egg shell.

'After one year of us working together, with me creating publicity for his work, Pham Luc was finally able to own his own car,' says Berger. 'I'm lining up some international shows for him in Europe. He's not producing for money or fame, though. Pham is simply driven.'

The artist agrees that he's unusually prolific. A visit to his studio below his two-storey home is proof. 'At any one time, I'm working on up to eight paintings,' he says. 'My high speed means that those who like to copy paintings [to sell to tourists] can't keep up with me,' he says with a laugh.

His studio contains hundreds of boards and canvases, mostly Vietnamese landscapes and cityscapes with simple, at times caricature-like lines, and a certain sense of humour.

The younger generation have got a lot of catching up to do.

Thang Long Gallery, 12 To Tich Street, 41 Hang Gai, Hanoi, tel: (844) 825 0740, www.thanglongartgallery.com. Apricot Gallery, 40B Hang Bong Street, Hanoi, tel (844) 828 8965, www.apricot-artvietnam.com. Vine Annex, 1/F 45 Au Co, Tay Ho, Hanoi, tel: (844) 719 8321, www.vine-group.com.

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