The Guardian hails young Vietnamese art prodigy

Xeo Chu is one of three sons of Nguyen Thi Thu Suong, who owns two galleries in Ho Chi Minh City.

Suong told The Guardian that she encouraged Chu and his two brothers to take drawing lessons not long after they were able to walk.

As a youngster, Chu would beg to attend art classes with his older brothers, and his request was then accepted by his mum. Although his brothers eventually gave up the lessons, Chu found his passion.

According to the article, Xeo sold his first picture to a visitor to his mum’s gallery. Since then his works have been collected all over the world from the United States to Japan and beyond.

“Today critics regularly compare him with Jackson Pollock, his pictures come with US$150,000 price tags and, with this new exhibition in London’s Mayfair following others in Vietnam, Singapore and New York, he has had solo shows on three continents. Not bad work for anyone, but especially remarkable for someone born in 2007,” says the Guardian.

The article also revealed that when he was just 10, Chu held his first painting exhibition in Singapore and used the US$20,000 proceeds to support causes such as paying for heart surgery funds, helping elderly people living alone, and supporting street children.

Last summer, Chu sold eight of his works as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in an online auction held on his Facebook pages, donating the proceeds worth VND2.9 billion (or £96,000) to a hospital in order to purchase medical equipment to combat COVID-19.

The British newspaper also quoted New York gallerist George Bergès, who put on Chu’s first American show and compared his work to that of Pollock’s, stating that “Xeo Chu is creating similar works from the very beginning of his career.”

Bergès also argued that Chu’s 300-plus painting oeuvre taps into the collective unconscious in a way older artists struggles to manage.