artLIVE – The exhibition ‘The Sacred in the Everyday’ unfolds a perspective where ordinary life naturally emerges in sacred form through the refined simplicity of Bien Hoa ceramics, intertwined with the graceful lines of silk painting.
The group exhibition ‘The Sacred in the Everyday’ brings together three young and talented artists selected from the Annam Open Art Call 2025: Lam Gia Huan, Le Trung Hieu, and Tran Van Thien Quan.
Artists bringing tradition into the language of contemporary art
Lam Gia Huan is a contemporary silk painter who draws inspiration from the interplay between Vietnamese traditional art and modern visual language. His works radiate a sense of simplicity with warm color palettes, minimal compositions, and poetic nuances evoking memories of the Mekong Delta. Through his practice, he aspires to weave Vietnamese silk into the flow of contemporary art.
In his creations, Huan often captures serene yet emotionally charged moments. He refines silk to preserve its natural softness while layering delicate washes of color to create depth.
At the exhibition, viewers will sense the restraint in his color schemes and the balance in composition qualities that make the works both nostalgic and open, inviting the audience to step into their own narratives.
Coming from a fashion background, Le Trung Hieu offers a fresh and evocative perspective on craftsmanship, particularly Bien Hoa ceramics. For him, each creation is not only a celebration of form and material but also a quiet dialogue with the intangible memory, spirit, and the unending passage of time.
That is why Hieu embraces traditional techniques such as wood firing, ash glazes, and refined stoneware finishes, as a tribute to a craft nurtured across generations.
In his artistic journey, Hieu returns to the longstanding heritage of Bien Hoa ceramics as the foundation for his practice. At the same time, he seeks to reconnect younger generations with this heritage not as a static relic but as a living tradition, capable of growth and transformation while preserving its essence.
He channels into contemporary art the stories, symbols, and values of Bien Hoa ceramics, allowing them to be continued, reinterpreted, and reimagined for the future. For him, cultural heritage can only endure if it lives alongside the present like an unbroken current in which each generation becomes both guardian and innovator.
Tran Van Thien Quan is a distinctive artist who, though trained in architecture, has chosen painting as a parallel journey and, above all, a way to reach a reflective creative essence.
His architectural knowledge gives him clarity in form, spatial organization, and refined detail. Yet only through painting does he find the means to express dreams, aspirations, and reflections on culture, history, and human existence.
In Quan’s works, viewers encounter not only emotional layers of color but also the meeting point of reason and sensibility, of architectural precision and artistic freedom.
A sacred resonance within the rhythm of daily life
‘The Sacred in the Everyday’ leads audiences into an invisible ritual, a prayer without words where life itself whispers in sacred tones.
Here, the sacred does not hide in solemn temples or distant symbols but stirs gently within everyday aesthetics: a graceful curve, a ceramic glaze breathing with time, or folk patterns echoing like memories.
From three seemingly distinct practices, the artists find a shared rhythm, their works converging like interwoven breaths, weaving the cadence of existence.
The exhibition also opens another dimension: the visual language of Christian art reinterpreted through Vietnamese traditional materials and merged with symbols imbued with Eastern spirituality.
In this encounter, cultures do not negate one another but coexist making faith tangible and intimate, accessible through sight, touch, and memory. Viewers witness not only the blending of East and West but also discover a common language: the language of life, of quiet faith, and of culture as the source nurturing the most delicate aspects of existence.
‘The Sacred in the Everyday’ runs from September 6 to September 28, 2025 at Annam Gallery, 371/4 Hai Ba Trung, Ward Vo Thi Sau, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City.
Photos: Annam Gallery
