“You can set up a stage with all the props that you want and make the scene look real when in fact it is not. It is merely an illusion of the real. I like this style because it suits my cynical nature. My paintings represent the tricks that supported reality can play on you. I also think that my paintings make people uncomfortable because they can never be sure of excactly what they are looking at.”
Do Quang Em’s deeply personal and realistic paintings place him among Vietnam’s most respected and admired painters. A private person, Em’s life and his work are focused inward on the things he loves: his family, his work, and a few valued objects that are part of his daily life.
He is known for the clarity of his images and his exceptional use of light and shadow.
Another important element of Em¹s style is his use of space. In Em’s paintings space is never emptiness but a carefully constructed void surrounding his subjects. This spatial element, emphasizes the intricate details Em notices and chooses to reveal in his portraits and still lifes.
BIOGRAPHY:
1965: Gia Dinh National College of Fine Arts
1971: National Cultural Arts Award
1974: Taught at Gia Dinh National College of Fine Arts.
EXHIBITIONS:
1991: Group exhibition, Oil and Silk Paintings by Four Artists, HCMC
1993: Group exhibition, Opening Exhibition, Galerie La Vong, Hong Kong
1994: Solo exhibition, The Work of Do Quang Em, Galerie La Vong, Hong Kong
Group exhibition, 36 Recent Paintings, The Fine Arts Museum, HCMC
Group exhibition, Three Generations of Vietnamese Painters, Galerie La Vong, Hong Kong.
1995: Group exhibition, An Ocean Apart, traveling exhibition in the US
Group exhibition, Vietnamese Artists Gaining International Recognition, Galerie La Vong, Hong Kong.
1996: Group exhibition, Light and Shadow: Polar Elements of Vietnamese Painting, Galerie La Vong, Hong Kong.
1999: Group exhibition, Poetic Reflections–Contemporary Vietnamese Paintings, The Landon Gallery, New York.
2000: Group exhibition, The Ascending Dragon: Vietnamese Painting Today, The Landon Gallery, New York.
2001: Group exhibition, Tradition And Change: Contemporary Vietnamese Art, The Landon Gallery, New York.
2004: Group exhibition, Tradition And Change: Vietnamese Art Today, The Vietnamese Embassy, Washington, DC.
2005: Group exhibition, Saigon Perspectives: Paintings By Do Quang Em, Nguyen Thanh Binh, and Nguyen Trung, Gelabert Studios Gallery, New York
2007: Group exhibition, artDC, Washington, DC.
2009: Group exhibition, Tradition and Change: Vietnamese Art Today, The Consulate General of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in San Francisco, San Francisco City Hall, USD.
2011: Art Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, FL.
2012: Arts of Pacific Asia Show, New York, NY.
DO QUANG EM
‘I am a happy man: I love my wife and my children, I love the place where I live,’
‘I try to express that in my paintings, I don’t know if I have succeeded. When I use the word ‘try’ it sounds so wrong.’
‘The only thing that works is what comes naturally. You cannot force it.’
‘I never wanted to take photographs again.’
‘My works are realistic but not photographic’
‘There is something about photographs that are close to real life in a way: although for a photographer and an artist to be good, they both have to have their feelings in their work.’ His teachers were mostly French, teaching impressionism, realism and elements of modernism. So his own preferred style was not influenced by socialist realist art movements.
‘Abstract art is interesting too, but less of a challenge. It’s just so much easier to put your feelings in there than if you are painting realistically.’
‘In times of trouble, art finds a discrete place where it doesn’t stand out,in partial explanation. Perhaps this is the real metaphor underlying his work: that art and love survive in the darkest times.’
