In the 1990s in Hanoi, Nguyễn Quang Huy was a member of a group of young experimental artists who worked in new styles and media – especially performance and installation. Along with his teacher at Hanoi University of Fine Arts, Trương Tân, he was part of a critical avant-garde circle in the emerging art scene of the early Đổi Mới period.Nguyễn Quang Huy was known for his works in ink and colour on Vietnamese dó paper, which often had a searching, meditative and semi-abstract quality, drawing on the artist’s interest in Buddhism. In this image, the sewn-shut lips of the abstracted faces and the convoluted ink lines in the foreground seem to suggest existential questions about personal and social constraints, and the difficulty of achieving clarity of mind and communication.
