Nguyen Van Trinh | Vietnamese Silk Artist

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Nguyen Van Trinh (b. 1991) is a Vietnamese contemporary artist and a member of the Vietnam Fine Arts Association. Known for his long-term practice with silk, Trinh has gradually developed a distinctive visual language that brings together the foundations of traditional painting, a spirit of experimentation, and observations of contemporary life.

Trinh began pursuing art at an early age. At fifteen, he entered the Bac Giang Provincial College of Culture and Arts, where he first began working seriously with silk. He later continued his studies at the Vietnam University of Fine Arts. Throughout his academic training, despite having the opportunity to experiment with a wide range of materials, Trinh remained committed to silk — a medium that would become central to his artistic practice.

Through years of research and practice, Nguyen Van Trinh has never approached silk simply as a material associated with softness or tradition. For him, silk is a field rich with possibilities for exploration. His practice continually experiments with deep-dyeing techniques, watercolour, pigments and different approaches to surface treatment, embracing unexpected elements and even technical “imperfections” to create distinctive visual effects.

BIOSPHERE

A significant milestone in Nguyen Van Trinh’s career came with the emergence of the Biosphere series in 2017. Through experimentation with silk and Giang paper, he began constructing a distinctive visual world in which organisms, landscapes and spaces emerge from imagination, memory and emotional currents. The series marked an important turning point in his artistic journey, opening a new direction in both subject matter and material exploration.

Biosphere was first introduced in the exhibition Watching Elephants, organized by members of the Young Artists Club of the Vietnam Fine Arts Association in collaboration with curator Van Vi. The series was subsequently developed further and became the central focus of Nguyen Van Trinh’s first solo exhibition, also titled Biosphere, curated by Van Vi and organized at The Muse Artspace.

NEW DIRECTIONS OF EXPLORATION

In the years that followed, Nguyen Van Trinh’s artistic practice continued to expand. Alongside Biosphere, he developed new directions of inquiry, including the Crystallization series. While Biosphere opens an imaginative, multidimensional world of evolving organisms and shifting spaces, Crystallization marks a new direction in which memory and experiences from the creative process are held in states of suspension, concealment and reappearance through different layers of reality.

AWARDS & CAREER MILESTONES

In 2024, Nguyen Van Trinh presented Biosphere 3 at the exhibition Art Is Long, Time Is Fleeting at the Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts. In the same year, he received the Gold Award in the Emerging Artist category of the UOB Painting of the Year competition. The award marked an important recognition of his artistic exploration and contribution to contemporary painting.

In 2025, Nguyen Van Trinh was selected to create an exclusive collection of silk paintings for Dusit Le Palais Tu Hoa Hanoi, comprising 20 large-scale works displayed throughout the hotel’s prominent spaces. The project marked a further expansion of his practice, bringing his paintings into direct dialogue with architecture, space and contemporary experience.

In 2026, Nguyen Van Trinh continued to expand his presence in Southeast Asia by participating in the Nude International Exhibition in Bangkok, Thailand. The international exhibition created an opportunity to introduce his works on the human figure to a wider public and to the international art community.

ARTISTIC SIGNATURE

Through his sustained engagement with silk and an enduring spirit of experimentation, Nguyen Van Trinh continues to develop a visual language marked by a strong personal identity. Rooted in the foundations of Vietnamese painting, his practice seeks new possibilities for the expressive potential of material within the context of contemporary art.

Nguyen Van Trinh lives and works in Vietnam.