Doan Xuan Tang

Doan Xuan Tang was born in 1977 and graduated from the Hanoi Fine Art University in 2001. Tang's inspiration originates from images forged during his early years. He has been recognized for his ability to capture the unique beauty, strength and melancholy of people from the indigenous hill tribes. He often uses bold colors and broad brush strokes as well as streaks to obscure or exaggerate personal facial features, never painting a "perfect" beauty, since beauty comes from within. He almost always reveals a personal history in the eyes of his subjects.

In 2001, Tang won the Nokia Asia Pacific Award as well as a student exhibition prize from the Vietnam Fine Arts Association. 

His works are currently being exhibited in Vietnam, Japan and the USA and have made their way into private collections around the world. In 2009, Tang was featured in a solo exhibition in Hanoi titled "Another Kind of Aboriginal Brocade". I visited with Tang recently and saw tremendous change in his work. The recession has given him welcome breathing space to experiment and try his hand with a number of different creative styles that we are fortunate to be able to share in Tokyo. Tang’s work is that of a first class, maturing artist whose style is developing as he finds new ways to express the emotions behind the themes.