My stage-name is Truc-Anh (While I was living in France, I always write "-" between my name and my middle name because French never understand this is a name). When I was 10 years old, i decided to become an artist, and since then, i've never stop creative everyday. I started drawing ghost - which i "see" when i had stay at home alone. Many of my works was formed from images, that i saw when i was a child.
Among them is the story what I drew up from the ghosts and devils, that I have always scared, with the theme "Croire / Douter" (Trust / Doubt). Like other kids, I always live in a fantasy world: it is a world with imaginary friends, and I play with them. That also was main idea throughout the photos collection "L'Opera de Stanley" ("The Opera of Stanley") that I performed and exhibitions in Belgium in 2009 - the photos that you will never know exactly where it was taken. Thus, just imagine and guess about place and time that I captured the pictures.
Like the other artists, I work on art because I was afraid I would be forgotten. I want to leave traces of my existence through the drawings and share about the things I saw and experienced. I photographed and drawn because both of that two art forms is completely neutral and timeless, they allow me to convey a countless of emotions and sense about everything: from the cold beauties even to both the violence and the chaos correctly and clearly.
When the first time i came to Vietnam - where my parents was born - 8 years ago. I was shocked and amazed. Of couse, the first impressions about Vietnam are formed based on the stories that my parents told. On that very first moment i look at the country through my parents eyes and through their memories. Up to now, when i'm living here, i still seeing images (quietly) are reminiscent of a Vietnamese of my parents - the burden street vendors or kids playing football in the rain. I aware that photography is not just a necessary thing go abreast with myself, which for the first time, I feel it is a responsibility - an invisible wires linked to my origin. After the photos were taken during the colonial period, by the war correspondent and later by thousands of visitors to Vietnam from all over the world, I want to break old habits, that is the way to describe Vietnam as a colony of France, a fierce battlefield of the United States, or an ideal resort in the Asia Pacific region. I don't profess to be a judge or a people preach, but only record what I saw: the weaving roots beams of a tree over 100 years old, the pigs in the bamboo cage, a ruinous mound on tomb of the kings, the clouds drifting in the top of the mountain, the chickens die, metal scaffolding, electric wires overlap ... I'm always recognize that myself doing art for a specific reason. One future day, while achieving the purpose and answered my intrinsic questions, I will stop. But I always make sure that I will never stop the teaching, because it's worth more than the art (at least for my own).
In my own opinion, a good teacher who does not give his idea, but to help students develop their skills. The first thing I always ask my students "What do you want to do?" I want you to see the art there is no limit at all. Classroom, I always change the "rules" in the classroom - I ask them to draw with their left hand, create a drawing together, or go out and sketch any person on street. I made hese "experiments" to help them explore their potential, harmonize in the different conditions and exercise their minds. We are always discuss together what they have done. I reminded them always ask the question "Why?" when they toddle on the way of art: Why do you like / dislike it? Why do you want to do this project? Only when they become real artists and grew up, they can embark on creative without having to ask themself the question "why?" again. At that time, the artist just do what they want and think necessary.
Pictures 1-4 in the series "Happen", that was taken by Truc-Anh on 14.04.2012 at Sound Fest Festival, TP.HCM
