Midnight conversation – Saigon Citylife – May 2007

The series of photographs of the elongate shadows of tree on the pavements of late evening Ha noi, depict a beauty in the interzone between reality and the shadow-reality where things exist without rigid defination. The pavement shadowlay out in compositions both poetic an mundane.

Intersting how, the angle attract Nguyen The Son talking his shots are either above on a high tree branches or down below under neath our feet as shadows. It is where things exist daily as they are in front of us, but we rarely paid our attention. There is a sense of calmness, tranquility and deep observation almost like mediating in these images.

The series of photographs picturing the trees blended to the complex electric networks some how bring up a diffirent feeling of intensity, almost like fighting. Nguyen The Son show these works in a quite unsual setting, where the trees branches look nature and all the sudden, the complex system of electric cords in hundreds of crazy sharpness lines interlace together cutting through the images, distort the whole composition, making a terrible noise, interrupt the images of the leaves and branches. It someway creates the disturbance to the eyes of the viewers but reveal the intention of the artist.

Behind the aesthetic beauty of these photographic series, it provokes the viewer with questions and comments. There is an idea of the relationship between human and nature, between nature growth anf the rigid system of the modern life. The trees represent nature, the electric structure including social, political, technical and culture issue. Can both of them co-exist? Are they complementing each each other or destroying each other? What kind of relationship have they developing?

Nguyen The Son brought up an endless conflicted dialogue in which the images speaking for themselves stronger than words.

VU KIM THU