Le Thi Minh Tam

As one of the defining female figures of contemporary Vietnamese painting, Le Thi Minh Tam (b.1976, Hanoi) paints with a forceful and instinctive brushstroke. Her marks are uncalculated, and her figures possess a disarming naiveté, characterized by oversized mouths, ambiguous eyes, and paint slapped across the surface of the canvas. The colors are often saturated, bright reds, blues, neons, yet they cohere within the internal logic of the composition. The palette, though seemingly irrational, avoids sentimentality. Her brushwork reveals a process largely unmediated by conscious decision-making, and this immediacy lends itself well to large-scale formats, which she handles without strain. Her paintings are marked by strong gestural movement, within which one may detect a sense of spiritual or religious engagement. Tam works across diverse themes and materials, consistently maintaining authorship and control. A regular participant in religious rites, her works often reflect beliefs and rituals. For her, divinity is not confined to a single tradition; she visits churches, temples, pagodas, shrines, and sacred sites indiscriminately. The spiritual realm, as she engages with it, is non-hierarchical and inclusive, guided not by institutional allegiance but by an internal imperative. This sense of calling, for Tam, constitutes a moral obligation—one she feels compelled to fulfill.