Development, Influence, Artistic Style
Bui Huu Hung was born in Vietnam`s northern capital Hanoi in 1957. His Nha San Studio and his residence are located at the city`s beautiful West Lake. The Studio is the most renowned school in which artists receive systematic training in lacquer. As a graduate of the Graphic Faculty of Hanoi Fine Arts University, Bui Huu Hung can trace his passion for this medium back to his student days when his attention was first caught by the lacquer arts. He began to take on ancillary studies investigating the subtleties of lacquer painting in the studio of Bui Tuan Thanh, whom Hung considers his most influential teacher.
After graduation he began to develop unique practices and techniques that separate him from other lacquer artists. Besides using panel or wood for his lacquer paintings, he is the first artist to work with lacquer on canvas which demands very special expertise. Using only traditional lacquer techniques and natural resins with subtle, deep tones, he creates atmospheric portraits and still lives on both a traditional wood and canvas surface.
In lacquer painting, the successive layers of colors, lines and submerged eggshells or silver leaves disappear, leaving only the appearance of a dark, rough surface. At this point, other processes begin: the technical process of polishing and uncovering and the almost magical process of gradually penetrating through the depth of these layers. As the item is burnished, some colors simply vanish while others are transformed. Here the intuitive response of the artist is especially important; the artist’s sense of when to stop the process has more to do with artistic flair than technical skill.
Bui Huu Hung is exceptional in having taken that traditional medium to new heights by employing it in a modern contact. His favourite characters are women in difficult circumstances. Their faces are full of sorrow, languor, expectation or meditative silence. His paintings typically depict a royal lady, wearing a head dress or hat, embellished with jewellery, dressed in a fine, long silk robe, sitting on a throne. Surrounded by hazy, gold, swirling dragons and oriental arabesques, suggest a world of dream and unreality.
The central figure in Hung`s works is often surrounded by objects that serve as props or attributes in his iconography – manuscripts, candles, gold coins, old ceramic bowls and vases, urns and incense burner.
In his work, Bui Huu Hung expresses both sentimentality and mystery from the ancient legends by depicting mythical personages realistically against a background of absolutely illusory space.
With extensive study, honed skills, and traditional style of lacquer painting, Bui Huu Hung has created a name for himself in the international art market. He is one of the most talented lacquer artists today. His art is a novel tradition addressing the human values which the artist glorifies with all the power of his talent. (Published Book: Bui Huu Hung - From the temple of tradition). Thanks to his skill, emerging as if through layers of time from antiquity to present day.
Hung has established a reputation that extends beyond the frontiers of his native country, having had successful exhibitions in Japan, Hong Kong, USA, France. England, Poland, Belgium and Luxembourg. Moreover his works are now to be found in the permanent collections of museums in Russia, Singapore, Australia and Belgium.
Member of the Vietnam Fine Arts Association
Member of World Lacquer Artists Association
Bui Huu Hung`s Workshop
In 1986 Bui Huu Hung set up the Nha San Studio and Lacquer Artists`s workshop in Hanoi, Vietnam. Here he helps young artists and students to develop in lacquer painting. In a traditional wooden house on stilts, is home to a number of young lacquer artists.
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