The exhibition "Reverse Island Art 2026" by painter Nguyen Dai Giang held at the Vietnam Literature Museum (Au Co, Hanoi), is an important milestone in his decades-long creative journey.
Artist Nguyen Dai Giang, known as the father of the "Upsidedownism" school of art. Not only stopping at introducing painting works, this exhibition also opens up a dialogue space rich in suggestiveness between traditional art, contemporary thinking and the new creative generation.
Talking about the exhibition, painter Nguyen Dai Giang said: "I have painted almost my whole life, and if I look back, perhaps the only thing I haven't changed is the need to continue, continue, even by reversing what I already know".
According to the artist, the exhibition "Reverse Island Art 2026" is not a beginning, but like a "stop", where he looks back at the entire creative journey, from the stage of drawing according to anatomical and far-sighted standards, to realizing that the world does not exist in a single "right direction".
From that awareness, he chose the "reverse" path as a way to create his own artistic language. "When I was young, I reversed to resist. But now, I reverse to understand that everything has two sides, that the world is always moving and people are also constantly changing" - painter Nguyen Dai Giang shared.
In the current period, the artist's works are deeply contemplative, as he returns to the close materials of Vietnamese culture such as memories, people and images of his homeland. However, instead of recreating in a familiar way, he chooses a new approach: "I want to look back at the old things in a different state, where memories and the present overlap, where the old and the new coexist".
In addition, the exhibition "Reverse Island Art 2026" also reflects the artist's interest in the changes of the times, especially the development of technology and artificial intelligence. According to him, although technology can "see" and "recreate" the world, the core value of human beings still lies in feeling and living experience - irreplaceable elements in artistic creation.
“The paintings in this exhibition are not intended to give answers. They are just perspectives, which can be serious, can be gentle, sometimes a bit humorous, but all come from the desire to understand the world and ourselves. Artificial intelligence is developing strongly and being applied in all fields of life. I have my own perspective on AI and from there put it into my works” - painter Nguyen Dai Giang added.
Born in 1944, in Hanoi, painter Nguyen Dai Giang was well-trained in Vietnam and internationally. He graduated from Industrial Fine Arts Intermediate School course 3 and Industrial Fine Arts University course 1 in Hanoi, then studied graphics in Moscow (Russia) in the period 1969 - 1974, and continued his research in Seattle (USA) in the years 1996 - 1997.
He is one of the few Vietnamese artists who lived and created at Art Space, an art space built by the US Government specifically for artists. Throughout his career, he has participated in many international exhibitions and organized individual exhibitions in Vietnam, with milestones in Ho Chi Minh City (2009), Hanoi (2014, 2018), Hue (2016) and Da Nang (2018).
His works have been honored at many international awards and are present in many countries such as Japan, Canada, Belgium, France, Spain.
According to the artist's revelation, he started pursuing the "reverse" style in 1995, when he moved to live in the US. Before that, he pursued traditional realistic painting. "I realized that if you don't change, it's very easy to be forgotten. So I experimented and found my own path," he said.
The Upsidedownism style was later recognized by the Copyright Protection Board in New York and granted a copyright certificate.
