Cao Junling shares that "The Mute" is an attempt to expose the moment when silence has a superior power, covering everything, even more penetrating than any words. With an expressionist painting style, Cao Junling brings viewers into a quiet, empty space, but containing strong echoes of pain, conflict and emotion.
Portrait of artist Cao Tuan Linh
Existential struggle in silent space
"The Mute" takes viewers on a journey to explore the depths of silence, where people confront the crazy hustle and bustle of life. In each painting, distorted shapes and contrasting colors symbolize endless inner struggles. Cao Junling does not hesitate to describe his creative process as a spiritual pilgrimage, when he "breaks" and "restructures" reality. For him, expressive art is not just a means of description but a way for him to immerse himself in each moment, capturing fleeting but haunting emotions.
Exhibition space
“The Mute” takes viewers on a journey to explore the depth of silence that remains after all sounds—both sweet and peaceful and loud and wild—have died down.
Lacquer - the language of emotions
The language of lacquer, with its spontaneous characteristics, requiring patience and perseverance, became a challenge that Cao Tuan Linh chose to express what he was struggling with. Lacquer - a traditional material that is difficult to control, but at the same time extremely flexible in expressing complex expressions, similar to the spirit of the painter. Long known as one of the traditional materials of Vietnam, lacquer in "The Mute" has gone beyond the old rules, expressing its own artistic transformations.
Most of the lacquer works in the exhibition "The Mute" were created by artist Tao Tuan Linh in the expressionist style.
"The process of making lacquer requires a lot of time, almost an undeniable commitment between the artist and the work. The uncontrollability of lacquer is what attracts me, it's like we are having a dialogue with ourselves through each layer of color, each brush stroke. I want to find my voice, through the silence of this material," Tao Tuan Linh shared.
In the exhibition "The Mute", the audience can easily see the patience and desire for freedom of expression of Cao Tuan Linh through each stroke. Each painting is a discovery, a breaking of one's own limits, to explore new limits in artistic language. The calm colors contrasting with the distorted shapes in Cao Tuan Linh's paintings are not simply meaningless lines but are images of existential life, an understanding of inner struggles and conflicts.
Each painting is a discovery, a breaking of one's own limits.
Cao Tuan Linh said, "The Mute" is where he wants to convey people's anxiety in modern life, where conflicts between the ego and society are constantly present.
Silence - the space for all sounds to arise
Hoang Lan (21 years old, student at the University of Fine Arts, Ho Chi Minh City) shared: "When all sounds, whether sweet or noisy, have died down, that is when absolute silence reigns. Within that silence, the screams truly begin. "The Mute" is not only an inner journey of the artist but also an invitation for viewers to immerse themselves in the silence, to listen to their own voices in the silence."
"The Mute" is an open space for viewers to freely interpret and immerse themselves in silence.
True to that spirit, each painting at "The Mute" is like an open space for viewers to freely interpret and immerse themselves in silence. The colorful lacquer layers, the sharp but suggestive lines have created a multi-dimensional emotional field, inviting viewers to listen, feel and connect deeply with their inner emotions.
Painter Cao Tuan Linh tries to go to the end of freedom in artistic expression
Many young people came to visit the exhibition
The exhibition "The Mute" is open to visitors from 9:00 - 20:00, Monday - Sunday, October 26 - November 24, 2024 at Annam Gallery (371/4 Hai Ba Trung, Vo Thi Sau Ward, District 3, HCMC).
