Preface

A Sanctuary Park for the Soul

I approached Duong Thuy Duong’s works without any preconceptions. No distinctions. No expectations. No socializing. Nor “convention.” All that remained was the pure visual expression of art perceived through sensibility (sinnlichkeit). From the ultimate result of this contemplation process (gedacht/denken in German), a line is drawn back to the artist's essence, in pursuit of the question: Who is Duong Thuy Duong? 

When I once wrote a review on the music of Russian pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff, I carefully chose three keywords—romanticism, exile, and nostalgia. This stemmed from his own words in an interview with Leonard Liebling of The Musical Courier in 1939, shortly after his arrival in America: “I feel like a ghost wandering in a world grown alien. I cannot cast out the old way of writing and I cannot acquire the new. I have made an intense effort to feel the musical manner of today, but it will not come to me.” Geographic displacement often accompanies, or even intensifies, a greater, more profound rupture in one’s spirit and cultural identity. Just as Vietnamese people at home and abroad are distinguished by terms like “overseas Vietnamese” (overseas world, overseas literature, overseas music), today we find ourselves familiar with terms like “global citizen” or “borderless art.” And yet, within this seemingly boundless, universal language, there are artists who feel isolated in the space between worlds, floating. These solitary artists also appear when they do not seek their roots, identity, or nationality to separate or be different from the world. For them, the narrative isn’t about a drop merging with the ocean, or the sea entering a single drop. Instead, they embody an unfathomable ocean. Duong Thuy Duong seems to fall into this category.

We speak of artists floating in mid-air—those who belong to no specific biosphere or territory. In 19th-century Europe, there was a common satirical phrase: “The English rule the sea [referring to the British navy], the French rule the land [referring to Napoleon’s army], and the Germans rule the sky [referring to metaphysicians].” According to this notion, these artists belong to the metaphysical realm. They exist beyond all borders, their thoughts transcending all tangible reality, creating their own artistic worlds without needing geographical or cultural elements to define their identity. Like metaphysicians, they craft a timeless, locationless space where free forms and spiritual aspirations flourish, unburdened by physical or traditional limitations.

Duong Thuy Duong, then, may belong to the “metaphysicians” of visual art, as the images and forms she creates not only manifest themselves but also evoke questions beyond the visible world. Much like 19th-century German philosophers who conjured invisible realms from forms and ideas beyond ordinary comprehension, Duong’s art distances itself from the physical world, resonating with a metaphysical essence that seeks meaning beyond conventional structures. She does not use familiar images of Vietnam or the language of her cultural roots to assert identity. Instead, she lets her art soar freely, like a metaphysical entity belonging to anyone and anywhere, blurring the lines between individual identity and human essence, opening up larger questions of the self in a borderless world, of humanity’s relationship with the transcendent universe.

Perhaps because of this suspension in mid-air, Duong’s art embodies a “unbearable lightness”—a philosophical notion reminiscent of Milan Kundera’s “lightness of being,” which sees life as weightless, free of inherent meaning or burden. Much like Kundera’s depiction of a life unbound by moral or existential weight, Dương seeks to exist in art in a pure state of freedom, unrestrained by culture or geography. This creates a “void,” a vacuum space both empty and absolutely free, where every action and choice holds meaning assigned by the individual alone. In this way, Duong’s “unbearable lightness” becomes an exaltation of the beauty of pure freedom—weightless, with no ultimate purpose—a metaphysical lightness that opens a uniquely artistic space.

Thus, Duong Thuy Duong’s art is not calculated on canvas. While many contemporary artists use art to tell stories about migration, relocation, exile, post-colonial conditions, or displacement, Duong transcends distinctions of “self” and “other,” “us” and “them,” “this side” and “the other side.” Referring to the title of one of her works, This Side and the Next, she speaks only of one side and the next, implying an ongoing ascension of existence, a being constantly restructured from the outside in, from external to internal. This is her way of drawing the world into herself, then once more interpreting it, but this time as her world. There is no “immigration” or “emigration,” only journeys between worlds. Be it Germany or Vietnam, Berlin or Hanoi, to her, these are but stops on a journey, pauses for renewal, places to distill inspiration and fuel her artistic voyage.

In this exhibition, Duong Thuy Duong invites the audience to walk along the various cars of her artistic train, spanning 15 years of creative exploration (2009–2024), from pencil sketches to watercolor works to oil paintings. Her development of line and form is layered and melancholic, reminiscent of a quiet violin chord left hanging in the stillness of night. Each frame is a window cracked open, inviting viewers into the fleeting and the ephemeral. A Madonna with a disappearing child in her arms. This style also appears in Agnes in the Elevator and The Holly 2, where figures are deconstructed and dissolved into countless winding threads, stripped of all representation, leaving only their contours. Faceless portraits. Chaos culminating in tranquility. The self, from self-negation, to self-affirmation.

To Duoơng, color is not just a visual decoration but a nuanced dance, guided by rigorous principles of emotion and spirit. Each hue carries an “essence”—an independent mental space, where colors not only evoke emotions but convey psychological traits and inner depth. Aligned with Goethe and Schiller’s concept of the “Rose of Temperaments” (Die Temperamentenrose), Duong views each color as its own character, reflecting the mental and emotional states of a person. For her, combining colors is a meticulous, non-random process, structured to create a harmonious symphony where color fully expresses the soul’s depth and resonance. Thus, color is not merely a tool but the very space where Duong’s art resides, opening a powerful emotional and psychological experience for viewers.

Don’t try to find a definitive anchor or identity in Dương’s work; ultimately, all that remains is a sanctuary park for the soul, called art (“just a shelter for my endless, wandering thoughts”—in her own words).

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