Wild banana flowers’ beauty in a Hanoi artist’s paintings
By Kieu Giang in HCMC
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| Artist Nguyen Ngoc Ha (R) discusses with a visitor about his paintings depicting wild banana flowers at the Lotus Galley in HCMC's District 1 - Photo: Kieu Giang |
Flowers seem to be an endless subject to many artists. To Nguyen Ngoc Ha, an amateur Hanoi artist, that is not a rose, orchid or daisy, but wild banana flowers which have inspired him to create so many art works about this simple but special flower. For the first time, a painting exhibition on the beauty of wild banana flowers will be introduced to HCMC audiences today at the Lotus Galley in HCMC’s District 1.
This is the first solo exhibition in HCMC by artist Nguyen Ngoc Ha after his first solo exhibition and three joint exhibitions in Hanoi. The exhibition consists of 25 oil paintings in strong and bright tones of red, orange, brown, yellow and green. To Nguyen Ngoc Ha, the image of wild banana flowers marked a special meaning in his childhood in the mountainous Lai Chau Province and nine years in the army. “The flower has a strong vitality in any circumstance and to show its maternal love since each flower embraces many bananas. Through my pictures I want to express the spirit and the soul of wild banana flowers, not the landscape simply,” Ha explained to the Daily. “One day, my wife came home and showed me banana flowers from her trip to some temples in the mountainous province of Tuyen Quang. Once seeing these flowers all the memory in the past rushed to me and inspired me to draw,” Ha added.
Born 1954 in Hanoi, Nguyen Ngoc Ha, an officer of the People’s Committee of Hoan Kiem District in Hanoi, came to the world of arts and colors accidentally in 1998. Although Ha is an amateur and self-taught artist, he has devoted much time and effort to study from books and to learn from other artists seriously. To people in the art field, Ha’s art works inherit the quintessence of traditional art and world modern art and daily life experiences. His works were chosen and collected in private collections in Singapore, France and Vietnam.
Audiences should spend some time this weekend to pass by the Lotus Gallery at 67 Pasteur Street, District 1 to feel the beauty of wild banana flowers through Nguyen Ngoc Ha’s strokes.
The exhibition runs until May 28.