Bình

Binh Pho is a Vietnamese-American artist best known for his pierced and painted works in wood. Binh Pho grew up in Saigon during the Vietnam War. His childhood memories are for the most part pleasant, though he remembers the horrors of the Tet Offensive and other fearful moments. When the “Red Peace” descended upon the land in 1975, he refused to accept Communism. He tried to escape but was captured and sent to a reeducation camp for a year. After three more attempts he finally made his escape in 1978 as one of the boat people. The journey from his childhood in Vietnam to life as an artist in the United States is one of struggle and perseverance, yet he views it as a philosophical acceptance of destiny through the lens of the happiness and success he found in the United States. Binh Pho arrived in the United States on May 7, 1979, and initially focused on higher education, receiving a bachelor's degree in electronics in 1982. He became a United States citizen 1984. An early breakthrough in Pho’s work was meeting the Canadian woodturner, Frank Sudol, at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. Sudol’s piercing and airbrushing techniques opened a new world of self-expression for Pho. He combined the techniques with lessons learned from other woodturners; the use of color as employed by Giles Gilson and Michael Hosaluk, a sense of continuity learned from Michael Mode, and the use of metal leaf in the work of furniture maker David Marks. He’s also influenced by 20th century Surrealist painters and sculptors, notably Salvador Dali and Mihail Chemiakin.

Nguyễn Bình was a Lieutenant-general in the Viet Minh. He was imprisoned by the French on the island of Poulo Condore in the early 1920s. Although not a communist, he was sent by Ho Chi Minh in 1945 to establish a resistance to French rule in Cochinchina where he established his base of operations in the Plain of Reeds near Saigon. Described as "cruel, indefatigable, pitiless, authoritarian" he nevertheless became a hero to the people of South Vietnam.