Artist Hom Nguyen reunites with Vietnamese art lovers.

Hom Nguyen officially brought his works to the Vietnamese art community at S&S Art Gallery in November 2021. In the final days of October, Hom Nguyen will return to Vietnam after a long absence, to once again feel the vibrations of his roots from deep within him, but this time with a fresh perspective.

Interacting with Vietnamese art lovers and young students, Hom Nguyen hopes to share his story and journey to encourage future Vietnamese artists to remain confident in the face of difficulties and challenges when choosing this path.

At the S&S Art exhibition, he will join children and parents in a painting activity. Having experienced countless hardships as a child but overcoming them all thanks to his intense passion for art, Hom Nguyen understands the importance of nurturing and developing children's interests from a young age, which will continue into their later lives. In the final leg of his "hometown visit," Hom Nguyen will paint a live artwork to honor the art of Patina, coinciding with the opening of Berluti's first boutique in Hanoi (the founder of Patina art).

Hom Nguyen showed an early love and talent for painting. He drew a lot, scribbling faces and landscapes with pencils on notebooks, desk corners, and tissues. However, the hardships of a family consisting only of a mother and son, whose mother had been in an accident and did not speak French, caused the four-year-old Hom to mature prematurely and become a warrior.

When asked about his childhood memories, he recalled many things that were gone; gone were the mornings his mother took him to school, gone were the nights he slept soundly because he had to stay awake to take care of his mother, gone was a carefree childhood. He recounted, "Life, everything was turned upside down. I had to grow up quickly, very quickly, because now I also needed to take care of my mother."

Hom stopped going to school and started earning a living at the age of 12 in a clothing store, but deep down, his passion for art always burned brightly. It seems that for Hom, the greatest blessing he received during his unfortunate childhood was the love of the stage from his mother's friend – a flickering candle that instilled in him the belief that one can still nurture artistic dreams even in a difficult life where making ends meet is paramount.

As an independent Patina artist, he began by applying colors to leather and mastering Patina techniques to create vivid paintings on the feet of collectors. With his innate painting ability, Hom then started painting on shoes, tattooing on thick leather, and gaining a small reputation in the field, he built a more stable life and became known in this area.

In fact, some customers have had to wait for custom orders from Hom. He was surprised by his own development in the field of Patina, which also gave him confidence in his artistic sensibilities and led him to decide to pursue his passion for art even further.

Anh Thi