Solo exhibition ‘A Herd of Unidentified Cows’ by artist Nguyen The Dzung, featuring 16 artworks of cow portraits with human bodies, will open at Cactus Contemporary Art Gallery tomorrow evening.
Dzung’s paintings are fussy with the cows elegantly dressed like gentlemen in suits. Cows are depicted as naive, unhurried with amusing faces who are trying to stand, look into and survive modern life as a human.

The cows look as if they are cloned together but sometimes they stand together, sometimes they stand separately.

“Ironically, to me, the cows are images of humans who try to show off with a fabulous outside appearance instead of insight values and whose minds and souls are lost in trade development and fraud and in a world that is ready-made, causing them to feel lazy to think or create,” artist Dzung.

However, the cow is a very familiar image of Vietnam’s countryside and is a friend of farmers. However, Dzung’s cows are dressed up in formal costumes, implicating some urbanized countryside areas.

The cow is a very gentle and hardworking animal, but in Dzung’s works, they do nothing but stand still and look. “Via my works, I hope to subtly send a message to visitors some social issues they should be concerned about and some
appreciation of the insight values of mind, soul, heart and morality that some are trying to ignore them,” said Dzung.

The show runs until December 31 at the gallery, 3/13 Quoc Huong Street, Thao Dien Ward in District 2.

SGT