In BBK:
"Pictures as exhortation"
"That will not happen to us" is one of the often heard phrases, that suppresses problems. After Chau Tran experienced the war in South-Vietnam he wasn't able to put it aside like that...... The painter, who lives in Düsseldorf since 1979, expresses his consternation about the increasing damage of nature and the threat of a possible nuclear war in his pictures. A nuclear catastrophe - even not by war - is within reach, that was proven only some days after opening of the exhibition, which lasts until Mai 22nd. The reactor-disaster of Chernobyl startingly intensifies the collection of pictures and sculptures which are titled "Life and Nature".
With his darkcoloured chinese ink landscape-paintings Chau Tran shows desert and ragged districts resulting from ruthless exploitation and pollution. Baleful clouds of smoke gush from earth, no man in sight ("Landscape 2000").
Artistically Chau Tran targets a synthesis between eastern and western ways of representation, being concretely realized in "cutout" (1981). A traditionally designed landscape is attached to a larger sheet. The theme is continued on the empty spaces with soft elapsed brushwriting. In two ways the 37-year old artist breaks with chinese painting-attitude and chinese way of thinking. He illustrates the opulence of a flowerarrangement with bright colours instead of describing them with pastel colour. But his excellence can be impressively seen in pictures of plain allegories. For example the water, representing patience, that affectionately makes the rigid dure and fissured stone round.            Susanne Lambrecht

Exhibition in Villa Engelhardt
"Apocalypse and the ideal world"
by Wulf Kannegiesser
On a peak in the cliffy mountains stands upright a person with a sword in the belt of the full-length robe and glances at dark clouds in the distance. "Man has always to fight for his life" is the comment of the 37-year-old south-chines Chau Tran for his picture "On the battleground". Nature as opponent to mankind? "We forgot to live in accord with nature".
Chau Tran, former lecturer for chinese painting at Saigon art academy, offers different ways of painting. He confronts the european with the traditional chinese art work and strongly mixes the techniques of painting. Appealing are his spacious landscapes, dazzling his flashy coloured pictures of flowers, nightmarish clear the mood of his dark vision for the future.

"Life and Nature"
An exhibition in Villa Engelhardt
...Chau Tran, pseudonym Qing Lian...
...Chau Tran was born in South-Vietnam. He was artistically educated in Saigon. As a refugee by boat he came to Düsseldorf in 1979. Here he had a lectureship in chinese painting. On his pictures one can see the creative tradition which is connected to China's famous manual, the "Mustard Seed Garden". Qing Lian passes this tradition to his students. He himself integrated occidental elements in his works. Three small pictures should be pointed out, which give attention to man, time and love. On each of them one can see a rose in full bloom, attached to people. On the first picture the man is put into time, which he cannot elude. Man and sexuality is picked out as central theme of the second picture. Sexuality is not relevant and formative, because endearment is missing. Caressing is love alone (third picture). It is capable of doing a lot, everything, can even erode a rock.            Max Metzger