Almost as a reaction to the decades when women had to share their lives with their neighbors, colleagues, and families, many artists have chosen recently to develop their inner spirit and spend more time in their homes and in temples reflecting on their individual character and life stories. This is mirrored in works which depict the intimacy of their homes, personal possessions and family pictures. The younger generation of artists present in this exhibition reveals the current concerns of Vietnamese youth eager to make a name for themselves in the widening intellectual and business circles. The work of this generation also reflects Vietnam's youthful energy anxious to leave the past behind and make their imprint on the future. But instead of embracing modernity and economic development, artists of today have chosen to look to themselves and to the artistic world that they are contributing to creating.
Painting is a place for reflection and meditation, a safe haven from the outside world.
Painters, much like poets and musicians, seek to make an impression on their audience and offer the vision of a better world through their works. Works by today's young artists are filled with references to Buddhism, ancestral altars, animals of the zodiac, village landscapes, mythical heroes and abstract compositions but fashioned in such a way that their literal meaning is often lost. Artists employ them as motifs, as emblems or substitutes for their feelings. They convey warmth, nostalgia, sadness and joy. It is as if artists are searching for themselves, their individual thoughts and sentiments after years of having to form part of a collective unit of artists, a community of workers, a nation of similar people.