The works of ‘Beneath My Skin’ may be regarded with Western intuition and references, the viewer naturally connecting them to the works of great masters - Bacon, Schiele, Basquiat, De Kooning. And, certainly, we may also have the tendency to seek Vietnamese sources - Buddhism, sacred paintings, ancient rites - within each of artists - Do Hoang Tuong, Nguyen Minh Thanh, Dinh Y Nhi and Ly Tran Qunyh Giang. Yet, it would be a pity to entertain comparisons and parallels that are simplistic in nature, as what should be seen here is not only a question of cultural identity or combination alone, but the personal language of these painters and wood carver.
对西方艺术有着直觉的理解力的人，或者以西方艺术为参照的人，看了以“在我肌肤之下”为题的展览作品，也许会想到弗朗西斯•培根（Francis Bacon），艾贡•席勒（Egon Schiele），吉恩•米切尔•巴斯奎特（Basquiat），德库宁（De Koonig）之类的大师。也会想到佛教、圣画、古老的仪式等。当然，我们很想在杜凰祥(Do Hoang Tuong)、阮明成(Nguyen Minh Thanh)、丁意仪(Dinh Y Nhi)和李陈琼江(Ly Tran Quynh Giang)这些艺术家当中去寻找越南文化的影响。但是，如果只是简单化地进行比较和对照，那是令人遗憾的。因为，从这次展览的作品当中，我们应当努力关注的，不是文化特征的问题，甚至不是作品当中混合了哪些文化的元素，而是这些画家或者木刻家所使用的艺术语言。

Each expresses their concerns toward society, a great introspection reaching beyond the question of physicality. Further, they search within their subconscious and reveal to the audience a range of emotions, from bitterness to cruelty. Regardless of cultural origin, here the artist tends toward making his voice heard, and above all, unveiling his soul, going beyond the corporal or figurative confines.
每个艺术家所表达的，都是当他面对社会时，他心中所产生的恐惧，除了作品的图画之外，更重要的是他们心中的内省，因为每个艺术家都在自己的下意识当中搜索，并在观众的心中唤起了某些情绪，从忧郁到残忍都有。文化的渊源并不重要，重要的是艺术家通过这些作品，想让人们听到他们的声音，尤其是想揭示他们的心灵，而声音和心灵远不是肉体和形象的外壳所可以包容的。

These four artists, two men and two women, all have their stylistic and technical particularities: Minh Thanh experiments on do paper, Giang with wood carving, Do Hoang Tuong and Dinh Y Nhi either acrylic or oil paint. They live in the North, in the centre or in the South of Vietnam. Some are very engaged in the artistic scene, others are more discreet. Yet, they retain a common denominator, or, rather a word: melancholy. This state, associated with black humour and sentiments of profound sorrow, clearly binds the body and soul, as originally this stems from the medical theory of four humours that determine our temperament. This sentiment of melancholia is equally palpable in Vietnamese literature , in fables for example, as well as certain contemporary dance practices. Coincidence, or a particularity of Vietnam? This reflection arrives as a contradiction to the presuppositions above!
这四位艺术家，两男两女，每个人都有其特色，不管是技术上的还是艺术上的特色：阮明成展出的作品是纸面画，李陈琼江则是木刻，杜凰祥和丁意仪的作品是油画或者丙烯画。他们生活在越南北部，中部或者越南的南部，有的是参与社会活动的艺术家，有的处事则比较低调。但是他们的艺术的共同特点可以用一个词来概括，那就是“忧郁”。这种心情与一种悲凉、一种深深的伤感组合在一起，将肉体与心灵明确地联系在了一起，因为从根本上说，根据一种理论，我们的肉体包括有四种情绪，而每一种都决定着我们的性情。在越南的文学当中也可以体会到这种忧郁的情感 ，故事和舞蹈也一样…… 这是偶然现象，还是越南的特色呢？说到这里，这种思考又与前边的说法相违背了。

Do Hoang Tuong (born in 1960) offers oils on canvas where the woman is more than simply present, imposing herself on the canvas, and above all, her sufferance and solitude transpierce us. Do Hoang Tuong was part of the group of abstractionists whom installed themselves by majority in Saigon during the 1990s, painting the traumatism of the war, as well as the new urbanism of their nation. Yet for him abstraction was no longer sufficient, he found the need to pass from whisper to scream. It was thus that the figure took priority, often strongly expressionist, filled with violence and sorrow. It was for the artist the common lot of all, with happiness only a rarity.
杜凰祥（1960年出生）向我们展示的，是布面油画，画面中的妇女不仅仅是栩栩如生的，框架中的人物令人望而难忘，尤其是人物的痛苦，人物的孤独，对观众都有着深深的穿透力。在上世纪九十年代，杜凰祥属于抽象派的画家，这个画派的艺术家绝大部分都生活在西贡（胡志明市旧称），他们在画中所表现的，是战争的创伤，以及越南新的城市特点。但是，对于现在的杜凰祥来说，单是抽象地表达现实已经不够了，他觉得有必要从喃喃细语过渡到呐喊，所以人物形象在他的画作中占了上风。他的作品常常将暴力和忧郁叠加在一起，很有表现力。根据艺术家的观点，暴力和忧郁是每个人的家常便饭，因为幸福只是转瞬即逝的……

For Ly Tran Quynh Giang (born in 1978), this conflictual relationship with happiness perhaps appears all the more prominent since the animals and human figures which she engraves in black upon delicate bark are symbolic of her own isolation and rapport with the world. Her extremely tortured figures are at the frontier of morbidity, the hands or emaciated limbs cry for help, and dive within a profound sentiment of anguish. She binds - or imprisons - these personae, as if to self-protect and withdraw into her own body, rendering herself immune from the exterior world. The technique of engraving demands consistency and rigour, differing from oil painting, which she also practices, where the rapport with the material is more immediate.
在李陈琼江（出生于1978年）的作品中，这种与幸福对立的关系似乎表现得更加深刻，因为在她用十分细腻的树皮制作的黑色木刻版画当中，动物和人都象征着她的孤独，象征着她与世界的关系。她的人物形象受到严重的扭曲，表现出严重的病态，版画中的人物四肢干枯，张开大口呼喊着救命，被一种深深的焦虑感所折磨着。她的人物都是被束缚着的——或者是被囚禁着的——，她这样将自己与外部世界隔离开来，仿佛是为了自我保护，是为了拒人于千里之外。木刻的技术要求她的内心十分顽强而刻苦；她也画油画，但是木刻的技术与油画不同，因为油画的艺术与画布之间的关系更加直接。

A sensual relation with the physical is evident in the series of Dinh Y Nhi (born in 1967). She loves the contact between her hands, pigments and the canvas. The brushstroke of the young woman is extremely spontaneous, all while mastering the colour and the line of her figures which she has been depicting for over a decade. The tones have evolved: the 90s were dedicated to monochromatic tints, from grey to red – the subject being the human condition; today with a larger palette, she speaks of women, from Asia, crossing their stories with her own. Her very primitive figures lay the body bare, the female body. Yet the artist insists that the gender of her subjects is without importance, she desires that the viewer finds a mirror within her canvases and loses himself beyond the limits of the figurative composition.
在丁意仪（出生于1967年）的系列画作当中，艺术与材料的直觉关系是显而易见的，她喜欢双手与颜料和画布之间的接触。年轻的女画家画笔的随意性很大，同时对颜色和线条又控制得很好，颜色和线条组成的人物十年来始终在不断变化。色调在演变：上世纪九十年代，她的画是单色调的，先是灰色，后来又是红色，表现的是人类的生存状况。而今天，她使用的颜色更加丰富了，作品主题表现的是亚洲妇女，她将自己的历史与这些亚洲妇女的历史互相交叉。她的人物形象很原始，都是裸体的，而且是女性的裸体。但是，艺术家强调说，她的人物的性别并不重要，她希望观众将她的油画看成是一面镜子，透过人物的表象去探索。

This exploration of an intimacy, double fold as it combines both that of the painter and also that of the observer, is also a characteristic of Nguyen Minh Thanh (born in 1971) who has used do paper to rest his self-portraiture for several years now. Differing from the three other artists, he proposes an oeuvre softer in appearance, more peaceful, with a floating and poetical sensation. Too often assimilated to a group called the Hanoi Triad, Minh Thanh was marked by the influence of the teachings of Truong Tan, the first avant-garde artist of Vietnam during the era of the Doi Moi (1986), the opening of the nation. Yet, contrary to his mentor, his work is less in rebellion, more in the quest of purity, of perfection. It is strongly tied to Buddhism, where the human or physical representations may vary, yet where the soul is unique. It is this quest of the absolute that Minh Thanh tends towards. These last years, his personae are effectively liberated from tensions which were earlier characteristic and aesthetics surfaces a priori with soft nuance.
这种对内心深处的探索是双重的，因为它指的是对画家内心的探索，也是对观众内心的探索。这种探索也是阮明成（出生于1971年）的特点之一。多年以来，阮明成始终使用纸面介质创作自画像。与另外三名艺术家不同，阮明成的作品表面看起来比较温和，比较平静，让人看了能够产生一种漂浮感和诗意盎然的感觉。出于表达的方便，人们常常把他等同于一个俗话所说的“河内三人帮”的艺术团体。阮明成是张晋的学生，老师的教导给他的艺术打下了深深的烙印。张晋是越南改革开放时代（1986年）第一个先锋派的艺术家。不过，与自己的老师所不同的是，阮明成的艺术不那么叛逆；阮明成更加追求纯洁、完美。他的艺术与佛教的联系非常密切。在佛教艺术当中，人和物的表达可以多种多样，但灵魂是一样的。阮明成所致力的，正是这种对绝对的追求。最近一些年来，他的画作中的人物的确从紧张当中解放了出来，而紧张的气氛正是他以前的创作的特点。现在，差别虽然并不是很明显，但对美的追求在作品中变得更加重要了。

In the attempt to penetrate these works and the direction of these artists, their different stages in life and maturity must be considered. Minh Thanh, for example, retired to the centre of Vietnam, more calm, propitious to the change of his work; Dinh Y Nhi became a mother, more of a woman perhaps; Do Hoang Tuong belonged to abstractionists and was categorised within a certain group, yet he followed his own path and decided to return to the figurative, a direction less common than the reverse; whereas Giang, while still at the beginning of her career holds a pronounced style and a darkness which belongs to herself alone.
要想理解这些作品，理解艺术家的努力，我们必须考虑到他们的生活所经历过的不同阶段，他们成熟的不同过程。只有这样，我们才能够更好地理解他们的艺术。比如阮明成，自迁至越南中部之后，他的心情变得更加平静了，环境的变化促进了他的艺术发生变化。丁意仪成了母亲，也许更有女人味了。杜凰祥原来是搞抽象派艺术的，被认为是属于某个艺术团体的艺术家，可他也走过了一条与众不同的路，最后决定回归形象艺术，这种经历在艺术家当中倒是十分少见。至于李陈琼江，虽然她的艺术生涯刚刚开始，但她的风格已经十分老练，作品中所表现出的那种黑色的忧郁，是她所独有的。

Contrary to ‘A Snapshot of Contemporary Vietnamese Art’, which made a statement on the general ambience of contemporary art of Vietnam and the reflections of a society, ‘Beneath My Skin’ proposes the personal vision of four artists whom have chosen more traditional mediums, who question their entire being and, in subsequence, the soul of the spectator. They are timeless. One of the missions of art - if art has a mission - is it not to act as both a mirror of our sentiments and a catalyser of our emotions?
组织《当代越南艺术掠影》展览的目的是介绍越南当代艺术的总体气氛，让人看到越南社会的一个剪影。而以《在我肌肤之下》为题的越南艺术展览则不同，其目的是推出四位艺术家的个人看法；他们选择的是比较传统的艺术形式，而且都在探索自己的内心世界，因此也就是在探索着观众的内心。所以，他们的作品是超越时间的。艺术的使命之一——如果艺术有使命的话——这难道不正是作为我们的感情的一面镜子，成为我们的激情的一种催化剂吗