Artist: Mr Dang Huy Quyen
The Painter Dang Huy Quyen was born in 1948 in Hanoi Capital, Vietnam.
He was born in an old specialist family of Hanoi, in the period of interchanging between the two Cultures, Chinese scrip still existed, and French language was being commonly used. There fore, even as a child, he was taught and received the ancient national culture and the civilization from the Occident. When being somewhat grown up, at 9 years of age, his father who inherently was a painter coming back from France, taught him painting. Right in the process of learning painting from the age of 9, Quyen has combined the concept of pictographic, conventional Art, philosophy of the Orient with the detailed scrupulous classical style painting of the Occident his father taught him. Just like that he was developing for many years. However, during this period he had not determined whether he would become a painter, so he was a football player at the same time, and accepted joining the selected football team of the Army.

Later, when the war of sabotage happened, his father undertook a mission abroad, and he had the opportunity to approach, learned from many friends of his father, who are painters with different painting styles. After several years, his father returned to the home country, some conflicts of viewpoint on painting happened between his father and him, Quyen was still young, so he did not know from whom he would listen to and take advice, so Quyen decided to pursue his studies in the University of Industrial Art, give up football, however, he was still passionately fond of this sport, and he thought that perhaps he will be a football player again on some day.

In the past, during 4 years at home, he just learnt plastic art in combination with stage decoration, when entering Hanoi University of Industrial Art, he was 16 years of age, and he enjoyed learning fine art in combination with plastic art again. At that time he was very puzzled by overloading with a large quantity of knowledge of painting he had to remember and receive, with many ways of painting, many painting schools so that he found himself having many jobs to compared to his classmates.

After graduated he temporarily stopped dreaming about football or painting, he went to the battlefield in 1969, until the end of 1971 that is the time of war between Vietnam and USA. He was assigned duties in Quang Tri, Lao Bao, South Laos, Dong Ha then to the North. For more than 20 years in the battlefield, he was writing so much literature that sometimes he had rare time for painting stretches in the battlefield, but not much. After demobilized and transferred to the North, during that period, most of agencies were cutting their staff off, so he was unemployed, and did not know what to do better while he was unemployed and hungry, he applied for being a football payer again, however, after a short period, he had the opportunity to apply for working in Hanoi dance and song ensemble. Although applying for working as a painter, his job at that time was just odd chore behind the scene, he was rarely entitled to painting. The job was not satisfactory much, however, he got a chance to meet with many friends at the same rank for sharing, sympathizing, and many of them became famous artists later, such as Mr. Tran Tien, Mr. Vu Nhat Thang, Mr. Hoang Nhuan Cam, Mr. Tu Huy...

At that time, his friends judged that Quyen had a special painting personality, unlike anybody, they like his paintings. Just like that he was silently and patiently painting; and he field regretting the time in the dance and song ensemble for doing the job behind the scene, so he decided to lease work and stay at home for painting. During that period, unemployment is very poverty - stricken, because Vietnam has a subsidiary economy which is imitate the Russian. Quyen was wandering, always on the move, and he was usually going for painting with uncles Bui Xuan Phai, Nguyen Thien Chung, Duong Bich Lien, and especially he was very dear to the poet Chu Hoach.

For the time of doing so, he found that he was very weak in classical skill, therefore, for the entire period of 14 years he was painting sketches with coal pencil together with some painters he considered as his teachers, he forgot everything he learnt from his father, and his father’s friends, and even the University of Industrial Art. He has understood how to create a new figure, and just like that he was completely bound up in painting so far.

This year, he has been 61 years of age, and he has been silently working during 50 years, and has got thousands of oil paintings. Although he has received so much things from painting masters as well as many schools in the world, he also has forgotten everything, only painting reasoning is remained, and he thinks that every teacher also has his own limit, someone is good at using color, but weak at figure, someone is good at lay - out thinking, but painting style is poor in manifesting.

Gradually he is silently working and searching for the last 20 years. According of Quyen, the Orient which is the place of his birth, inherently has a lot of mysterious things that are flaccid, misty and he finds the way to paint out and explain these mysterious things, there are many things deeply stamped with spiritual character; and the mysterious things of his soul have painted with a new and strange style and the form of plastic manifesting that never exists in plastic thinking. In some period he has studied the painting style of famous painters in the world, for example some times his painting like that of Pablo Picasso , and some time his painting like that of Vincent van Gogh, some time his painting like that of Botticelli; however, all of them are the final time he stepped into his own world.

When he stepped into his own world he turned round the Orient and began with Chinese scrip, he found that other painters also did so, they also took communal houses, pagodas, temples and shrines, ancient decorative motifs, and especially they took bronze drums out for transcription. In some period he even came back before the Feudal time, “Giao chi” tribe time. In tribes white, green, yellow complexions are very close to each other, and he understood why Pablo Picasso had cutting traces even to Africa, it turns out that when entering into tribal man has a lot of common parameters.

One more point is that Quyen seems to have his own region of consciousness, he has been sitting in deep meditation for many years, and this has opened inside him a separate world for dialogue with the influences he considered as Deities. He believed in another world that is co-existing with the world in which we are living, and he let his soul naturally led him into this spiritual region. He gradually experienced in combination with his knowledge of Buddhism about dead men that come to life again, because he has experienced himself - because in 1977 he was seriously ill and clinically dead, and after 2 hours he came to life again, that is difficult to imagine and express thoroughly.

Al that time he has arrived and found another world “I found myself hovering, and I saw everything around, and suddenly I saw a troop of people that are going, among this troop of people. I heard my mother’s voice that made me startled, I turned round and saw an old and weak person who scolded me “Why do you come here, for what?”, and I turned round, turned round, and I awoke, at that time I came to life again and saw the cold floor of the mortuary. I was staggering out of the mortuary that made the mortuary safeguard too frightened and stuck to the wall without saying any words.

I knew that there is one more world, and with this present life, nobody would hear me saying about that, I saw another world, and I began thinking that I will come to that world. I wondered why Paul Gauguin left some limes “who are we” Where are we from? Where do we go?” before he was dead by leprosy in Haiti and I went into spiritualism, it turned out that I saw all the operating state of the world of deities that does not carry the human emotion, does not express as the way of human thinking, it seems being and non-being; however, the invisible thing shall decides the tangible thing and decide the human destiny, and it rules all the people in the society. I was sitting in deep meditation and I began to find that all the things I thought were displayed”.

After that, in 2006, for 3 years Quyen painted a Panorama painting of 65m long for deeply diving into his internal world to explain that “Where are we came from?”. Where are we going to? And where was man born? And that is the human embryo?”. In 2009, Quyen painted 7 paintings of seven “linh” to express 7 states of the spirit, including “linh hien” (miraculous appearing spirit), “linh cam” (premonition spirit), “linh giac” (aura spirit), “linh sinh” (miraculous birth spirit), “linh ung” (very responsible to the prayers), “linh nghiem” (effectively miracle spirit), and “linh thieng” (supernatural spirit).

Since he has gone into the spiritual world, has gone through the spiritual world and has arrived to the spiritualist world, he has got very different reorganizations, and the viewers are not easy to sympathize immediately. Inspire of that, first of all these paintings also exuded a different way of looking, an original abstract philosophical thought, a new creative style in painting that could be meaningful to the author only?