About the artwork
Notable for his large-scale lacquer and oil paintings, Van Tho combines traditional and modern painting styles, employing crisp lines, bold contrasting colours and abstract forms. Van effectively uses colours to embellish his paintings, as well as to define form and volume. Instead of brushes, Van opts for alternative tools like trowels to paint. His mature figures often have an air of solemnity and are the focal point in ambiguous settings.
About the artist
Van Tho was born in 1938 in Ha Nam Province, Vietnam. He graduated from the Hanoi Fine Arts University, and is a member of the Vietnamese Fine Arts Association and the Hanoi Arts Association. Notable for his large-scale lacquer and oil paintings, Van Tho combines traditional and modern painting styles, employing line, shape, bold contrasting colours and abstract forms. He foregoes brushes and instead uses a trowel to paint. Starting out as a social realist, his works retell tradition and often depict human figures in solemn places.