Born in Hanoi, Nguyen Xuan Tiep (b.1956) graduated from Hanoi University of Fine Arts and had worked as a conservator at the Vietnam National Museum of Hanoi. His themes usually revolve around the countryside, family, memory and the spiritual, with inspiration drawn from Vietnamese myths and legends. Tiep has exhibited in Vietnam and internationally, such as Singapore, Europe and Asia since 1993. Here, the physical and spiritual realms meet and meld into each other in Tiep’s surreal dreamscape. This is a gentle reminiscence of Tiep’s childhood spent in the countryside, after being relocated there due to the war. The spirit of this artwork is perhaps closer to the folk aesthetic style of the well-respected artist Nguyen Tu Nghiem, who drew from village arts and traditional cultural motifs such as the pagoda in an attempt to represent memory and identity.
