b. 1959, Hanoi

Hà Trí Hiếu is known as one of the leading artists of his generation, and as an important member of  Gang of Five – the first group of young artists to gain international recognition. He was born in 1959  and graduated from the Vietnam University of Industrial Art in 1983, where he studied pottery and lacquer. The subject of much ofHà Trí Hiếu’s poetic, expressionist work is the beauty and simplicity of rural life in Vietnam. Hiếu was deeply influenced by the years he spent as a child in the countryside. Recurring images of water buffalos and stone temple dogs evoke feelings of nostalgia and the innocence of childhood. What makes Hiếu’s oil paintings unique is the symbiosis between romantic and expressionistic elements, between naïve forms and impetuously chosen colors, combined with a refined understanding of the subtleness of light. Hiếu is possessed by an ardent yet shyly self-conscious passion which finds its expression in the impetuosity of colors combined with a refined subtleness of light that seems to be enlivened by a sudden outpouring of long suppressed vitality. Featureless faces with white yawnings instead of mouths from which soar up silent songs.; Cows, sometimes elongated but giving nonetheless an impression of squareness, of a quiet earthy color of soil like the peasant’s life dominate the artists’ works.Hà Trí Hiếu has an extensive exhibition history. Selected recent exhibitions include: Flower – Eight Gallery, Ho Chi Minh City, 2012; My Way, Art Vietnam Gallery, Hanoi, 2008; Solo exhibition, Mai Gallery, Hanoi, 1998. Hiếu’s works are in the museum collections of Singapore Art Museum, National Museum of Malaysia, Vietnam Fine Art Museum Hanoi, Vietnam and in extensive private collections in Vietnam and abroad.