As I am enjoying Mai Hiên’s abstract lacquer painting, it occurs to me that lacquer painting is specifically Vietnammese while abstractionism comes from the West, yet this

SALVATION

“Who knows it’d all be a dream?”

Nguyen Du – Kieu

Art is creation. Labor and love imply suffering, happiness and hardships. Without suffering, the artist would neither find out the true value of happiness, nor discover the beautiful and get conscious of it.

She is among those rare Vietnamese women painters who in the 1990’s had forced their own innovative way into Vietnamese modern lacquer painting, working a change in the habits that had lasted for more than a half-century about about traditional lacquer visual language, and also in the aesthetical perception of art lovers.

…So tenderly green and yet who incites you to break loose your hair storm…

D.T.

Mai Hiên’s painting conceals beneath its surface wind-sheltered zones which invite us to wander in.