artLIVE – In art, the gaze has always been a dialogue between the viewer and the viewer. Yet for centuries, women have often been confined to the role of mere subjects of admiration. ‘A “Second” Gaze’ opens another door: a space where women become the subjects of their own gaze, voicing identity and personal experience – nuanced, free and ever – transforming.
The group exhibition ‘A “Second” Gaze’ brings together four young female artists: Lam Tu Tran, Le Mai, Mot Qua Tac, and Yen Nguyen. Within this space, they enter into dialogue about how women see, feel, and shape the world around them.
Tracing the visual worlds of four female artists
Artist Le Mai approaches painting as an inner dialogue with consciousness, where inspiration flows from the depths of her being. Her guiding belief, “At the end of darkness lies light” reflects a philosophy refined through upheaval and lived experience. Each brushstroke conveys self-appreciation and a search for clarity amid obscurity.
Her works capture the fragile, innocent beauty of femininity. Employing diverse materials – ink, watercolor, mineral pigments, tempera, silk, and arches paper – she forges a sensibility she calls “Inner Perception”: turning inward to see the world through the lens of the heart. In this realm, every object carries subjectivity, as she notes: “Every tree I paint is myself, every space I depict is an inner landscape.”
Lam Tu Tran, a young visual artist, pursues a path of harmonizing traditional materials with contemporary sensibilities. A graduate of the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts, she creates works infused with fragments of memory, reminders that hidden layers lie beyond the visible surface.
On her delicate silk canvases, she breathes life into color, form, and the spirit of her era, so each piece becomes both personal narrative and unspoken dialogue.
For Yen, art is a storytelling journey – painting as projection, bringing clarity to unshaped inner realms. From leaving home, memories of her parents, to her love for nature and romantic sentiments, the 1999 born artist from Nghe An finds her connection to sincerity and identity.
Her paintings intertwine memory with contemporary shifts, reflecting her search for belonging. A graduate in Painting from the Vietnam University of Fine Arts and now based in Hanoi, Yen embraces painting as a way to observe, mirror, and harmonize with reality’s rhythm. Using oil with muted tones, she imbues everyday scenes with subtle melancholy, evoking deeply human emotions. Her art is unbound by theory, resonating instead like a gentle whisper – an echo of peace found in distant memory.
Mot Qua Tac (Le Thi Que Huong), a silk painting graduate from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts, embraces painting as a way to redraw love for herself, preserving tenderness amid life’s turbulence.
After the Covid-19 pandemic, she turned toward a more positive outlook. Stillness became something she longed for in a fast-paced world. Her works resemble diary pages, woven from fleeting emotions that surface when the gaze lingers on fragile beauty – transforming into solace and quiet comfort.
She shares: “Each work is a way for me to communicate with people. Despite ups and downs, I paint with the calmest brushstrokes. I hope viewers can also feel that calmness and steadiness in both themselves and my paintings.”
‘A “Second” Gaze’ – When gazes reflect one another
The title ‘A “Second” Gaze’ alludes to the notion of the female gaze and Simone de Beauvoir’s classic The Second Sex. In 1975, theorist Laura Mulvey pointed out that in art, “the gaze” has never been neutral.
Classic Hollywood cinema, for instance, operated under the “male gaze,” reducing women to objects of spectacle (to-be-looked-at-ness) and sources of visual pleasure (scopophilia).
The exhibition unfolds as an experiment where philosophy and aesthetics converge. Here, artists and artworks lead viewers into a visual loop: to gaze while realizing they are also being gazed upon. This encounter invites audiences to pause and reflect on the interplay between subject and object, between gaze and the female perspective.
Rather than defining femininity within fixed boundaries, ‘A “Second” Gaze’ opens a space where it can exist as diverse, rich, and ever-changing possibilities.
The participating artists come from different regions of Vietnam, each following distinct artistic styles and carrying unique cultural imprints. This diversity fosters a multilayered dialogue on female perspectives within a global context.
Each artwork is both a personal mark and a reflection of origin, experience, and transformation, contributing to the expansion and enrichment of contemporary Vietnamese femininity.
The exhibition will be on view from October 4 to November 2, 2025, at Annam Gallery, 371/4 Hai Ba Trung Street, Xuan Hoa Ward, Ho Chi Minh City (previously 371/4 Hai Ba Trung Street, Vo Thi Sau Ward, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City).
Photo: Annam Gallery
