ABOUT VIETNAMESE ART

Sherry L. Goodman, Curator for Education, University of California at Berkeley, University Art Museum.

A startling freshness and depth of vision mark the best of the new Vietnamese painting. An empty boat suspended alongside mysterious dwellings in a primal blue; engulfing fields rising to enfold the viewer in time and place; glowing, spattered scenes viewed through a screen of  Vietnamese calligraphy...these haunting images emerge with compelling authenticity from sustained artistic endeavor.

Imbued with an almost hallucinatory sense of place, contemporary Vietnamese art often seems to be made directly from the dust and depths of the countryside itself. Equally, it bears a deeply-felt sense of the past, whose accumulated force we feel right beneath the surface of this powerful new art of the present.

David Chamberlain, First American to serve in Vietnam as Ineractive Artist in Residence, Boston,Massachusetts, .

 The studios of Vietnamese artists are cooking. Artists are champing at the bit, eagerly exploring multiple approaches and directions from a multitude of influences: Local, Regional, Asian, Western.

So much to work with, so much change, so quickly, so long awaited...so much happening. This momentum is leading to a century's worth of imagery...this decade. As in many cultures, Vietnam's artists are the visionaries; the philosophers; the prophets whose time, now, has come.