Security - Dinh Y Nhi

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3 S E C U R I T Y


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SECURITY

Dinh Y Nhi

6 - 28 June, 2009


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Published 2009 by

Thavibu Gallery Co., Ltd

Silom Galleria, Suite 308

919/1 Silom Road, Bangkok 10500, Thailand

Tel. 66 (0)2 266 5454, Fax. 66 (0)2 266 5455

Email. [email protected], www.thavibu.com

Layout by Wanee Tipchindachaikul, Copydesk, Thailand

Copyright Thavibu Gallery

All rights reserved. No part o this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any orm or by

any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing rom the publisher.


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S E C U R I T Y 3

by Shireen Naziree

SECURITY

Though Vietnams art scene gained new currency ater the implementation o Doi Moi, the easing o its

socialist policies and market reorms in 1986, the evocation o its cultural narrative has largely turned towards

a romantic past while its history pushes orward with political, economic and cultural considerations that have

dictated various strategies o reconstruction. Though the relationship between material act and illusion, structure

and space have become a shared language that compels many artists today, the ormalism in Vietnamese

contemporary art practices does not readily embrace commentary that is personal or socially critical.

As with many contemporary thinkers, Dinh Y Nhi rejects the notion o collective memory and its links to a past

which unite many o her contemporaries in a reassuring cult o remembrance. Instead, her artistic practice has

evolved rom questioning the position o women in her Vietnamese society and by withholding any solace, her

imagery distils any stereotyped considerations o her gender. Since her graduation rom the Hanoi University o

Fine Arts in 1989, Nhi has pioneered a practice that has applied conceptual strategies to visual considerations.

And maybe more than any other Vietnamese woman artist o her generation, she has earned her place amongstthe most inuential post Doi Moiartists to have emerged.

As the daughter o prominent artist Dinh Truong Khang, Nhi developed an intimate knowledge o arts ormalism very

early in her career. However, because conventional art critical approaches were premised on the ormal appearance o

physical subjects, they ailed to register and assess crucial aspects o the contextual nature o her dialogue, thereby

challenging traditional boundaries within a culture where mainstream value systems remain conservative.

Amongst Dinh Y Nhis earlier works are depictions o women that, while intimate, eel charged with a rough

emotional urgency. The atmosphere recurs in SECURITY where Nhi succeeds in turning her subjects into a kind

o painterly residue that is recognizably material o an external world, but still eminine and unmistakably sexual

beings. Totally unapologetic about any perceived notions about Vietnamese women, her use o raw colour,

manipulation o depth and the usion o simplifed orms her work is distinguished by a balance o incisive

dratsmanship and painterly modelling.

Several works assert the transormative nature o the artists relationship o art production to her cultural world.

Though in much o this body o work, a conventionally defned subject remains elusive - in its place the artistic


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process itsel emerges both as the structure and subject

o Nhis practice. While Nhis painterly concerns arechiey ormal, her logic contains the potential or a

deeper, more ertile engagement o her subjects.

The patented combination o inormality and symbolic

charge in the art o Dinh Y Nhi reect a sense o how

social reality and the dream world express each other.

Nhi links desire and personal violation in ever changingways at times adopting a preerred consistency o

thought and morality o art as a code o being. As

such her works are about the notion o mirroring such

as in Security (9). By embracing the complexity o her

subjects experience the viewer can also move beyond

the limitations o static vision.

The artists perception o sanctioning the moralities

and ethics that defne security may be urther located in works such as Security (15) which like most o the

works in this series is at times rendered in arresting red taints that suggest the physical and emotional connection

women have with their bodies and the experience o being secure within onesel: these images encompass simple

gestures and appropriations that despite their visual economy evince sincere sensibilities. At the same time, by

combining an acute sense o respect in what might be termed the ormal characteristics o eeling Nhi manages

to situate her own emotional connection with her subjects at the centre o her practice, while avoiding thesentimental or the naive. For i relational aesthetics concern the economy o human intimacy, then Nhis enquiries

extend beyond any personal realm but extending itsel into a public domain.

Security (9), 2008Oil on canvas120 x 160 cm

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Nhi oten rames her subjects as in Security (3), thus allowing the careul viewer to contemplate and question their

own sense or idea o security when conronted with an alienated public domain which oten dictates our civiliseddaily lives and thus disrupting the sae space o sel. As such, Nhi explores territory and principles that lie beneath the

surace and through its dimensions underline not only our insecurities but the social dynamics that enorces them.

Nhi is evidently less interested in rehashing theories o the male gaze here, but rather how the human eye and

memory orm an ideal, creating a desire or identifcation. The dynamic in a depiction such as in Security (8) suggests

an abstract connection between the emale character housed in a socially trapped body and someone she has

lost or yearning or, or in more overt terms, reinorcing the ideal eminine objectifcation o being delicately pretty.

Dinh Y Nhi has spent much o her practice surveying the emale psyche and through SECURITY she oers an

opportunity to examine the inner characteristics that deliberate eminism. From early in her career, she wanted

her art to rise above the opposition between narrative and abstraction. While she continuously challenges hersel

with line and colour, the world o her art does not reer to renouncing any relationship to reality. Her colours are

most oten very primary and the randomness o application has become part o her equation that emphasise her

expressions o straight orward thought and reasoning. This deliberate restriction o her palette reers to morethan emphasizing her subjects; it not only creates a temporal distance but allows or text and imagery to unite

on a single plain allowing each viewer to decide on how to read into her paintings.

Security (15), 2008

Oil on canvas

109 x 150 cm

Security (3), 2008

Oil on canvas

87 x 140 cm

Security (8), 2009

Oil on canvas

80 x 96 cm

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Security (1), 2009 | Oil on canvas | 90 x 140 cm

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S E C U R I T Y 11


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S E C U R I T Y 15


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S E C U R I T Y 1


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S E C U R I T Y 21


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Dinh Y Nhi

Born 1967, Hanoi

Bachelor o Fine Arts rom Hanoi University o Fine Arts, 1989

Member o Vietnam Fine Arts Association

SELECTED ART EXHIBITIONS

1990 National Art Exhibition Hanoi, Vietnam

1993 Asian Art Exhibition Dhaka, Bangladesh

1995 Group exhibition at Itoyama Gallery Tokyo, Japan

- An Ocean Apartat Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition USA

- Solo show at Vietnam Fine Arts Association Gallery Hanoi, Vietnam

1996 Group show at Museum Fujita Tokyo, Japan

1997 Group show at the Contemporary Arts Exhibition Centre Amsterdam, Netherlands

- A Winding Riverat Meridian International Centre Washington, USA

- Group show at Centre Wallonie-Brixelles Paris, France

CHRONOLOGY

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- Solo show at Mai Gallery Hanoi, Vietnam

- Solo show at Forum Schloss Platz Aarau, Switzerland

1998 Group show at City Museum Paris, France

- Group show at Art Museum Bassano Del Grappa Vincenza, Italy

- Group show at Art Museum Busan Busan, Korea

- A Century of Vietnamese Modern Art European Union Tour

1999 Solo show at Asian Fine Art Factory Berlin, Germany

- Solo show at the Goethe Institute Hanoi, Vietnam

- Solo show at Canvas International Arts Amsterdam, Netherlands

- Group show at Frankurt Arts Frankurt, Germany

- Group show at the University o the Philippines Manila, Philippines

2000 Gallactica group show at Vietnam Fine Arts Association Hanoi, Vietnam

2001 Solo show at Gallery 55 Bangkok, Thailand

2002 Vietnam Art Actuelat the University o Montreal Montreal, Canada

- In Memory, the Art of Afterwardat Sidney Mishkin Gallery New York, USA

2003 Solo show at Art Vietnam Gallery Hanoi, Vietnam

2005 Solo show at Gallery 55 Shanghai, China

2006 Artists from Vietnam Mumbai, India

2008 Changing Identities at the Utah Museum o Fine Arts Salt Lake City, USA

2009 Solo show Securityat Thavibu Gallery Bangkok, Thailand

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

Singapore Art Museum

National Art Gallery o Malaysia

Vietnam Fine Art Museum

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www.thavibu.comThe Silom Galleria, 3rd FloorSuite 308, 919/1 Silom rd.,

Bangkok 10500, ThailandTel (662) 266 5454, Fax. (662) 266 5455E-mail. [email protected]

B1G1 - Thavibu Gallery has partnered with Buy 1 Give 1 Free, which

implies that when you buy an art work rom Thavibu Gallery you will

automatically give a donation to a charity in the B1G1 network. Donation

rom one painting purchased provides one blind person with accommo-

dation and shelter or one month. www.buy1-give1ree.com

Security - Dinh Y Nhi

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