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| The famous lighthouse on Ke Ga Bay - Photo: Mong Binh |
For four days, the San Francisco-born Tammy Nguyen will set up the class’s easels on the shores of the Bay with views of the beautiful shoreline and famous lighthouse.
Jean-Philippe Beghin, general manager of the resort, expects the first annual Painter’s Retreat workshop and package would attract art beginners from Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere in the region.
“Everyone who visits Ke Ga Bay leaves with an impression of this spectacular natural landscape,” Beghin said. “Now, with guidance from a renowned American art instructor, Tammy Nguyen, they’ll have the opportunity to leave with their own painting of it.”
Nguyen is a graduate of the Cooper Union School of Art in New York City and traveled to Vietnam on a Fulbright Grant to study traditional Vietnamese lacquer painting in 2007. Her preferred medium is oil, but her investigations of Vietnamese culture have journeyed through lacquer, silk and even embroidery.
“En plein air (outdoor) painting has been enormously influential in Vietnam and continues to inspire many of Thursday’s young artists,” Nguyen said in a statement. “Monet and Renoir were guiding stars for such Vietnamese masters as Nguyen Sang, Bui Xuan Phai, and Nguyen Gia Tri, and on Thursday for many of Vietnam’s fledgling painters.”
Beghin said resorts these days needed to do more than be a blank canvas for someone’s holiday. “We need to provide the tools for the making of memories as well, and this Painters’ Retreat is our gambit.”
Nguyen will work with students to develop texture, color and light. The workshop allows for communal instruction and one-on-one assessments and assistance by Nguyen who has had students in the United States and Vietnam.
The brushes, oil paints, linseed oil, smoks and easels are included. At the end of the retreat, students will be able to share their artworks and experiences in a salon show.
The US$1,525 package covers three four-hour seminars, art materials, three-nights’ accommodation, daily breakfast, two cocktail dinners with the instructor and a spa treatment. Additional charges for supplementary guests sharing the same room, but not the workshop, are US$240 per person.
For more information, call the resort’s marketing director Zulkifli Rahman on (08) 3845 5990 or email dosm@princessannam.com.
