Ha Hoang:
Make Art Club is pleased to introduce Vietnamese artist Ha Hoang, who through a transformative journey from Vietnam to the United States and later France, intertwines diverse cultural influences in her work.
Painting since age 5, Ha's art embodies a profound meditation on time, chance, and accidents, employing gestural marks, minimal colour palettes, and raw textures. Her creations delve into the universal human experience, capturing the essence of creativity and reflecting the rawness of existence. Ha's artworks reside in private collections across the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, and Australia, evoking philosophical responses and connecting viewers with their inner narratives.
A limited series of Ha’s work will be on display at our Pop-Up Gallery exhibition from December 2nd to December 31st in Barcelona, to learn more about the event please click here.
What themes and ideas always inspire you in your art?
HA: Philosophically I have always been drawn to the poetic beauty of the traditional Japanese aesthetics Wabi-Sabi, which focuses on accepting the ephemeral nature of the world and embracing imperfection. I find a strange stillness in ancient architecture, abandoned ruins, in surfaces that acquire a patina over time - in things that carry the marks of time and wear history on their sleeves.
The innocence of a child’s scribbles or cave paintings also fascinate me because of the poetry in their carelessness, the freedom in their honesty – and because this is also where all of us find a common ground: we all came from cavemen and we all had been a child. All of these influences translate on to my creative process, from mimicking the textures of old stone walls to the spontaneous mark making and nonchalant brush strokes. Each work is a meditation on time, chance and accidents.
What process of creating a work of art is most unique or important to you?
HA: Generally speaking, there are 2 stages to making each artwork: marinating ideas and doing. The first stage comes naturally and it happens even when I sleep: it could be that my mind is stuck on a name of a song, verses of a poem, a blurred scene of my dreams, or a color I saw on a wall while traveling. Whatever it is, I let this stay with me until I can produce an image for it. When it comes to painting, I always make a base with the colors and textures I want first before adding marks and details. The first step is more calculated, planned while the second step gives me more freedom. Everything plays its own equal part in making an artwork.
What materials, techniques or medium do you prefer to use in your artwork and why?
HA: Plaster is my favorite medium to add textures to my paintings, it also allows me to create an organic color field that is raw and non-homogenous, which resembles natural decay and shows the passage of time. Pastel is another favorite medium of mine because I can modify the marks after with my fingers, and this gives the art making process a special tactile quality that is more intimate and child-like.
What role do you see art playing in today's society?
HA: To me, art, whether it be music, poetry, dance, or visual art, has always been another form of language, and what language does is communicate.
Today, we live in a world bombarded by bite-sized information, everything is about fast tracking and immediacy and instant gratification. I see art making as an instrument for us to step back , slow down, fabricate our own vocabulary, taking back the ability to make a choice of what we value, what we want to give a voice to, what we want to capture as a moment frozen in time, what we want to leave an imprint in our minds – all of which are more and more in the hands of AI and algorithms in today’s society.
How do your personal or life experiences influence your art and How do you see your style and creative approach evolving over time?
HA: I grew up living with my grandparents in a small village in the north of Vietnam, and my dad was a shrimp farmer in the Mekong delta. I spent my childhood in nature collecting stones, fallen leaves, tree branches, strolling along riverbeds or in the garden collecting fruits with my grandpa. I learnt to pay attention to small details and found that nature is the best artist and poet. A large part of my adulthood I spent living in high rise towers and cities that never sleep. Moving to France, living in the countryside with buildings date back to hundreds of years ago evokes a strange nostalgia for time past. Quietude in nature and old things inspire me to create, and give me the space to let go of the rigid perfectionist that I was when living in the city.
