Featured Artist

Phuong Duong
Phuong is a painter of still life, using oil on canvas. Her paintings are spontaneous and emotionally charged. Though she is not a very prolific painter, she hopes that this may be made up for, by the depth and richness of her interpretation. She admits that naturally she is quite a closed book, described as “still waters”. Paint allows her freedom from consciousness.

Austerity, Seniority, Frivolity and Fertility, oil on canvas, 76 x 101 cm, 2010

Self-imposition, loneliness and heartbreak.

Last Bloom, oil on canvas, 60 x 80 cm, 2010

There's the Jeff Buckley lyric "It's never over, she's the tear that hangs in your soul forever".  Mary, whom I met in hospital, represents that feeling.  Sometimes in life you look for angels and a lot of emotions about that time are wrapped up in her memory.  She had written me a card a few months after we had met, with great difficulty.  Her writing was shaky and frail and tailed off from the cramp rendering chemo as she wrote about her hair falling out.  That evokation remains a stubborn memory.  It is deeply personal, the things you can't let go that becomes a part of your being and subconscious.

Blue, oil on canvas, 60 x 90 cm, 2010

Blue is the most innocent of paintings.  It is optimistic and simple. Comme c'est difficile d'etre simple.

A candlestick, vase with flowers and apples, oil on canvas, 76 x 101 cm, 2011

     I was thinking a lot about yellow and light.  I was thinking a lot about Van Gogh as I always do for inspiration.  This was a painting responding to the artist and his influence.
     I paint because it can feel like it only means something to me and that's a precious thing indeed.  I like that I can go my merry or downbeat way with complete freedom.
      Painting is a practice of natural instinct, memory and urgency.

Many thanks for Phuong for sharing her delightful oil paintings.

What do you think of Phuong's work?