By James Bulman-May PhD
Associate Professor in Art History and Interculture Communication
University of Copenhagen

The radiance of Bang’s heliotropic flowers and ecstatic nudes empowers the spectators, as if encouraging us to be the best versions of ourselves. Vulva and mandala in one, the bloom of his interactive petals seems to blend with the mandalic ethic of embracing feminine, masculine, spiritual, and material aspects of the self. The suggestive bravura of his multidimensional blossoms offers the viewer a mandalic script: an invitation to make the most of the cards dealt by destiny and the present moment. Embracing the wave functions of the individuative spectrum on symbolic (the humble dark mud that nourishes the enlightened flower clusters), as well as concrete levels (invitations to joyful aesthetic appreciation of art), Bang’s emblematic canvases perpetuate the eternal enigma of art: the quest to translate the intangible sublime to ephemeral epiphanies.

Contemplating a painting by Professor Dang Duong Bang, you find yourself pondering a postmodern alchemical lab-on-a-canvas that integrates recombinant DNA from the history of art. The resulting bricolage resonates like a perpetuum mobile, continually deciphering the sublime. The alchemists would say that Bang’s metaphysical paintings distill moments of philosophical gold. With such windows on the psyche’s transformative potential, we do not need mirrors.

James Bulman-May PhD