Opening: 15.05.2008@6pm
Exhibition on view until 14.06.2008
Location: Sàn Art
23 Ly Tu Trong, District 1
Ho Chi Minh City

The exquisitely fashioned figures of Nguyen Thai Tuan appear ethereal and wraithlike, their insubstantial forms mirroring a monochromatic landscape that is featureless and indistinguishable. Black Paintings is a series of oil paintings where the human form is given meaning by its absence. The body of an invisible man is clothed and seated on a forlorn seat amongst a swath of yellow. In another image, three women in white stare at the viewer, seated and dressed in contemporary attire, their individual features lost, blacked in. This omission of human detail, masked in a color suggesting darkness, ignorance or emptiness is a deliberate ploy by the artist. He calls into question how we identify with the world, through the media, fashion, popular and political trends, by understanding how these systems may perpetuate ideas of cultural stereotypes and assumptions. By confronting such ideas, perhaps these black forms can be transformed into a different kind of human truth.