a glimpse of us, on Earth
the oldest person can live to more than 100 years. it seems like a long lifetime.
but it’s only a glimpse on Earth. in fact, the whole of human history is just a glimpse on Earth.
and yet, for us, it’s everything. it’s the love, the fear, the moments. it’s the hatred, the historic events, the cultural movements. it’s the kiss that feels like an eternity, and the relationship that passes like a minute.
a second on Earth stretches into a lifetime when lived by a human.
i capture those moments - knowing that even though they mean everything to me at the time, they are only a glimpse on Earth.
but didn’t a writer once say, “On Earth, we’re briefly gorgeous”?
A glimpse into the lives next-door
Name: The next-door neighbor
Medium: Digital
I remember as a kid, my mom often used an old saying: “Sell your far relatives, buy good next-door neighbors,” to stress how important good neighbors are. But as city life grows more complicated, we’ve become more isolated. The word “neighbor” now feels less like someone who helps, and more like someone who pokes their nose into your life. To me, it’s a collapse of social bonding.
I cannot even name a neighbor from the past ten years. This piece is just an imagination. I enjoy city life as it is, but isn’t that a little sad?
A glimpse into the life of a working person
Name: Last meal at late night
Medium: Oil pastels on newspaper
Grab pioneered transportation and delivery services in Vietnam, and there was a time when their green uniforms were everywhere on the streets. By the end of Covid - when lockdowns were lifted but restaurants still weren’t open for dining in - Grab drivers became a vital part of daily life in Ho Chi Minh City.
What struck me most was how often I’d see these men, who delivered meals to us, sitting at small local street food stalls late at night, finally eating their own. Sometimes it was the start of their night shift. The dim blue light of a cheap bulb hanging over their bowl of noodles always caught my eye whenever I passed by. Street food is popular here with everyone, but there was something urgent in the way they ate between deliveries that made the scene haunting to me.
It felt like a glimpse into their lives - the only glimpse I could have. Usually I only see their backs, as I sit behind them on a bike ride. And even when I see their faces, they blur under the light, under the weight of living.
A glimpse into a Vietnamese woman in feudal times
Name: Banh Troi Nuoc illustration series
Medium: Acrylic
Hồ Xuân Hương was a famous female poet of Vietnam’s feudal era. Under an extreme patriarchal regime, it is remarkable that she became not only popular, but also daring enough to use explicitly sexual metaphors. Her relentless free spirit challenges me whenever I begin to fear that I am “too much.” If a woman living under feudal times could write so boldly, I have no excuse not to be myself.
This series illustrates one of her most famous poems, Bánh Trôi Nước (Floating Rice Cake). The 4-line poem is a metaphor for the lives of Vietnamese women back in the days - likened to rice cakes drifting in water, with no agency, their delicate beauty passed around and determined by men. And yet, even in that condition, the woman strives to keep her dignity intact.
In creating this series, I wanted to move beyond simply visualizing the story and instead capture its essence: the texture of the floating cakes, the sensation of drifting in a void, directionless and without control. And, true to Hồ Xuân Hương’s voice, I allowed space for subtle sexual innuendo, because she never ceased to astonish with her sensual wit.
A glimpse into my 15-year friendship
Name: Through thick and thin
Medium: Digital
This illustration was done when I had a reunion with my best friend, who lives in South Korea and came back to Vietnam after 5 years. We talked about our long time being friends, through important milestones. It is incredible that we felt just like we met yesterday. We did not seem to change, yet we did change a lot. We had been through many things since high school. It is a beautiful thing that I wanted to celebrate.
A glimpse into a a normal day in a cafe
Name: Hoang Thi cafe
Medium: Digital
Vietnamese coffee and its café culture is something you can never miss. I spend much of my time café-hopping, because life feels most alive when I’m sitting in a café, watching people talk or work. Each spot has its own style and flavor. Hoang Thi is one of the most distinctive - heavily influenced by rock music, run by an artist, and tucked inside one of the city’s iconic old buildings. It always gives me the artistic boost I need.
This piece was done swiftly, right there as I sat inside the café.
A glimpse into stillness during chaos
Name: Doi Mot Nguoi (Waiting On Someone)
Medium: Digital
This illustration is of a café in Đà Lạt called Đợi Một Người (Waiting on Someone). Đà Lạt is notorious for its romantic atmosphere, and the name of the café itself carries that sentiment. I was there healing from a breakup, and the name echoed exactly what I was doing - waiting on someone I knew would never return.
The café itself isn’t remarkable, except for one spot: a small glass house, separate from the main building, standing in the middle of a lake and surrounded by trees. The café is always crowded, yet that little house looks strangely lonely. My first instinct was to make the lake stand out against the greenery around it - like a drop of blood falling from the sky.
A glimpse of us, frozen in time
Name: A glimpse of us: The breakup
Medium: Oil pastels
This painting is a homage to Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, one of my all-time favorites. I’ve always been struck by the world Hopper created in his works - so consistent, so haunting. When I thought of capturing this very moment from a third-person perspective, Nighthawks immediately came to mind.
Of course, the mood here is almost the opposite. Hopper’s world is about disconnection between characters, while my aim was to borrow his composition and echo his palette in order to show intimacy and connection between two figures. That irony was what excited me. My hope is that while the piece is painted from the outside looking in, viewers still feel it from the inside, as though they are living the breakup themselves.
This is the largest painting I’ve ever done. My motto in art has always been that enjoying the process matters most. So eventually I threw down the brushes and started spreading paint with my fingers on the paper. And it felt right.
