I wandered down to the beach at twilight and stood there completely overwhelmed by what I saw... there it was, the dark red flaming
sunset of my dreams, the sunset I had painted from a vision in my mind's eye.
It must have been that the eye of the child of three that left the village so many years ago had absorbed that vision and it had always
been with me, buried deep in my subconscious. Without knowing its origin, I had always felt that the deep red color of twilight was
important to me. I had painted it over and over again in the years since I had last seen the real sun setting over the sea of my village.
In my paintings, that cardinal color red has always been an expression of happiness, love and the beauty of the natural world. It has
also meant loneliness and reminded me of my own mortality.
When I was 4 years old my father sent for me to join him in Hanoi . While he was at work, I was left in the care of his painter friend. I
was most impressed with this man's passion for painting.
When the war came, I was sent away to boarding school. In my letters to my father, I use to enclose
small water color drawings. Just about the time I received notice of my father' death, I received a
letter from him expressing his wish that I become a painter... in that letter was a watercolor of a rose
that I had sent him two years before.
In 1962, the well known Vietnamese sculptor Diep Minh Chau came to my school and took some
of my work to be exhibited at the Fine Arts College. Upon his recommendation, I was admitted to the college without even having to
pass the entrance exam.
I studied painting and art for the next twelve years. During the war, we students were often evacuated to the countryside, either hiding
out in the tunnels or finding hospice with the peasants of the area. It was during those years that I developed a tremendous empathy
with the rural life and the traditions of my country. I shared everything with the peasants... many times going just as hungry as they.
During those years of study and the war, I felt myself change from a graceless girl into a mature woman who was able to survive. I
experienced horrors that I care not remember and transferred my fears and anger into expressions of nostalgia and hope to my art.
The sorrow, the bitterness, the numbing sense of emptiness of those years gave me the courage not to give up and the burning
desire to make something out of whatever I had. Buddhism and the precepts of Zen are important to me. I believe that the present is
but temporary and look to the future with hope. I have not as yet found my own "peace" ... inside of me still rages the storm of a
searching soul.
When I am painting, I am happiest. I abandon myself to the energy of the act of creating, allowing myself to express freely with color,
technique and motif. I and my sense of belonging. Time just slips away and the painting seems to finish itself.
These special moments are rare and fragile. I hope my paintings reflect the Zen spirit and show my love and respect for the memory
of my father who wanted me to paint.
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