To Burrow (Đục) / To Fill (Lấp) are antonymous verbs. Void (Rỗng) / Whole (Đầy) are opposite adjectives. When placed together, the pair Đục Rỗng/Lấp Đầy exposes a contradictory correlation: burrowing into one’s wholeness/ filling one’s void. The exhibition Đục Rỗng/Lấp Đầy accentuates a psychological and tangible “void-wholeness” through personal, private and contrasting inquiries.

The exhibition space is divided into four rooms, with distinctive concerns. 

Thanh Vinh questions the filled/voided in national narrative, hence his use of fictional characters to strive for a rewritten history from an individualistic standpoint. 

Thuy Anh utilizes domestic and direct task to confront the void/fullness within the relationship of the female body vs orthodoxical burden; or better yet, the relationship of abject/object – body/screen and the intimacy in-between. 

Kim Duy employs remnants of pictures to examine the narration of imaginative images through the concept of “segmentation” and “wholeness”. 

Nghia Dang uses painterly gesture in an effort to poke at the need for austerity in artmaking.

The work in the exhibition does not aim for concrete interpretation but rather an attempt toward materialization – a symbolic act of “filling” or “burrowing” – while hinting at individual wish of each artist in confronting their own voided reality.

Thanh Vinh, born in 1988 in Hanoi, finished bachelor degree of fineartsat the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China in 2011, then went to the Netherlands for a Master of Fine Artsat AKV|St.Joost in‘s – Hertogenbosch in 2014. Thanh Vinh’s works represents how to connect both tradition and rapid change of globalization and mass media and bring it to the future.

Thuy Anh (b.1993) is a visual artist from Hanoi. She graduated from DePauw University in 2015 with a B.A in Studio Art and English and is currently enrolled at the School of Visual Arts (New York City) for an M.F.A in Interdisciplinary Fine Art. Her body of work consists of installations, sculptures and videos.

Kim Duy (b. 1987) is a visual artist living and working in Hanoi. Duy’s works often incorporate a variety of media, subjects and systems.

Nghia Dang (b. 1994 in Hanoi) is currently finishing his B.A in Painting and Visual Critical Studies at the Art Institute of Chicago. Nghia mainly works with painting, incorporating a variety of form and medium in his practice.

T. Van