Biography

Daughter of master artist Vu Duy Nghia (1935-2022), artist Vu Thu Hien was born in Bat Trang village near Hanoi in 1970. She has a solid ground in her understanding of classical Western Art, which, when combined with Vietnamese artistic aesthetics encompasses a rich texture and culture of East and West, past and present, spiritual and mundane.

Hien's works reflect her lifestyle and her process of painting. She paints on Dzo paper, a bark paper from the mulberry tree, which makes it durable and long-lasting as she utilizes watercolors for infinite delicacy and shading of palette. The simplest aspect of Hien's style evokes the essence of Vietnamese spiritual life. Many of her paintings have the ability to communicate to the soul, the spirit, and to the afterlife. Vu Thu Hien’s watercolors are delicate, dreamlike, and at times haunting. Her traditionally clothed figures are mysterious and real at the same time and are often embodiments of the spirits that influence human lives. Her medium, Dzo paper is used by Vietnam’s ethnic minorities for altar paintings or inscribing Buddhist sutras, it is the perfect medium for Hien’s deeply spiritual art.

Vu Thu Hien often depicts female objects, wrapped in ceremonial colors, cloths, and robes, as if they are speaking to spirits performing ancient traditional Vietnamese rituals. Her figures are embodiments of the spirits that impact human lives. Hien's mediums are reflective, poetic, and boundless.

She has won various Vietnamese art awards and has exhibited her work in Vietnam, the United States, Thailand, the Netherlands, Italy, Israel and England.

Exhibitions

TBC: Solo Exhibition at Thang Long Gallery, Hanoi

2024: AAF Art Fair London Hampstead, Thang Long Art Gallery

2015: 8e, Paris

2014: Vietnam Vibes: Harmonies of Space and Time, Asian Art London, UK

2013: Worlds of Paper and Wood, New York, NY Worlds of Paper and Wood, Asian Art in London, UK Art Palm Beach, Palm Beach, Florida, USA ImaginAsian, The East Gallery, Toronto, Canada

2012: Art Palm Beach, Palm Beach, Florida

2011: VietnamNow!, The East Gallery, Toronto, Canada Art London, London, England Asia Fine Art, Hong Kong, China Hanoi 1000 Arts Club of Washington, DC 2010 Lenox Gallery, UK

Ho Chi Minh City Art Museum, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

2009: La Luna Gallery, Thailand Art Palm Beach, Palm Beach, Florida USA Changing Identities, US Traveling Museum Exhibition

2008: ArtAsia, Miami, Florida, USA Havana Hanoi, Faces and Places, Artana Gallery, The Hague, Netherlands Watercolours Show, Royal Academy, London, England

2007: Women Painters, Painted Women, National Fine Arts Museum of Vietnam, Hanoi, Vietnam Of This and Other Worlds, Two Female Artists Exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London, England

2005: Here and Hereafter, Two Female Artists Exhibition, Wilfrid Israel Museum of Oriental Arts & Studies, Israel

2002: Solo exhibition in Italy