A HOBBY THAT TURNS INTO A PASSION

Nguyen Thi Mai took up painting in 2004 via an art club in Hanoi, where she learned oil and acrylic painting.

What started off as a pastime turned serious when her talent became obvious and much encouragement poured in from family and friends. It soon grew into a passion as she dabbled in silk painting, crayon drawing and even a bit of porcelain painting along the way.

In 2011, Mai started her journey in Vietnamese lacquer painting and that’s when she really took off. The traditional Vietnamese lacquer painting is done with a glossy finish. With her own technique, Mai removed the shine from her lacquer painting, giving it a matte finishing instead. Thus the term “unpolished lacquer”.

Mai’s technique gives her work an understated, subtle and elegant look that differentiates her work from that of most, if not all, of the other practicing lacquer artists.

Over the years, despite eschewing gallery representation, Mai had had successes with her own solo exhibitions, receiving strong feedback from the artist community and art lovers who visited her solo shows.

She also participated in various competitions organized by the Fine Art Association of Vietnam, and picked up a couple of awards along the way.

In 2015, one of Mai’s unpolished lacquer paintings – Mice Wedding – was selected for participation in the 6th Beijing Biennale. It was a strong validation of her artistic talent, which received further confirmation when Mice Wedding was collected by the National Art Museum of China at the end of the Biennale.

In early 2016, Mai rediscovered the joy of acrylic painting and is now diving into this medium with all her passions, as she always did with her artistic creations.

In 2017, she was a Distinguished Artist in the “Portraits” Open Call organized by ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal and two pieces of her work were featured in the February issue of the journal.