Biography

Nguyễn Minh Thành (b. 1971, Hanoi, Vietnam) graduated from the Vietnam University of Fine Arts (formerly known as Hanoi College of Fine Arts) in 1996, and belongs to the first generation of Vietnamese avant-garde artists who experimented with less traditional methods of art-making, including performance and installation in the 1990s and 2000s, and later played a significant role in cultivating the contemporary and experimental art scene in Hanoi. Concerned with Buddhist notions of attachment and escape, and using mainly Chinese ink and watercolour on handmade Vietnamese dó paper, Minh Thành explores themes of familial relationships within the larger social, philosophical and psychological spheres through portraits of himself and his mother.

Having been widely exhibited both nationally and internationally, his works are now included in numerous public and private collections, including the National Art Gallery of Queensland, (Brisbane, Australia), the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (Japan), the World Bank Art Program, and Post Vidai Collection of Contemporary Vietnamese Art (Switzerland).