B. 1988
LÊ THÚY
Based
Vietnam
Based
Vietnam
Education
BFA, Vietnam University of Fine Arts
Education
BFA, Vietnam University of Fine Arts
Represented
Exclusively in India
Represented
Exclusively in India
Medium
Painting, Sculpture, Installation
Medium
Painting, Sculpture, Installation
Lê Thúy transforms traditional Vietnamese silk and lacquer into meditations on memory, loss, and the fragile relationship between people and the landscapes they inhabit.
Lê Thúy transforms traditional Vietnamese silk and lacquer into meditations on memory, loss, and the fragile relationship between people and the landscapes they inhabit.
Drawing on Vietnamese artistic traditions in her practice, Lê Thúy uses her works as a point of departure for examining how cultural memory and natural environments are altered by social and economic change. Working across silk, lacquer, wood, sculpture and installation, she combines arduous processes with contemporary subject matter. Her translucent silk paintings often evoke interiors, landscapes and fragmented memories, while her lacquer works build up layers of raw lacquer, cotton, sawdust and mud before being sanded and polished. She further incorporates eggshell, mother-of-pearl, gold and silver leaf, natural pigments and found materials, allowing the physical process of making to become part of the work’s meditation on time, decay and preservation.
Drawing on Vietnamese artistic traditions in her practice, Lê Thúy uses her works as a point of departure for examining how cultural memory and natural environments are altered by social and economic change. Working across silk, lacquer, wood, sculpture and installation, she combines arduous processes with contemporary subject matter. Her translucent silk paintings often evoke interiors, landscapes and fragmented memories, while her lacquer works build up layers of raw lacquer, cotton, sawdust and mud before being sanded and polished. She further incorporates eggshell, mother-of-pearl, gold and silver leaf, natural pigments and found materials, allowing the physical process of making to become part of the work’s meditation on time, decay and preservation.
Much of her recent work considers what is left behind when places, environments and ways of life disappear. In Time (2023), created in response to the felling of 6,700 old trees in Hanoi, concentric rings drawn from the structure of tree trunks are transformed into vividly coloured lacquer compositions, using Vietnamese lacquer practice to commemorate an irreversible ecological loss. She has exhibited extensively in Vietnam and internationally, including the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art at QAGOMA, Australia (2024–25) and a solo presentation, Desolation, at A2Z Art Gallery in Paris in 2024. In 2025, her Time series was selected as a finalist for the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize, where the work was presented at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid.
Much of her recent work considers what is left behind when places, environments and ways of life disappear. In Time (2023), created in response to the felling of 6,700 old trees in Hanoi, concentric rings drawn from the structure of tree trunks are transformed into vividly coloured lacquer compositions, using Vietnamese lacquer practice to commemorate an irreversible ecological loss. She has exhibited extensively in Vietnam and internationally, including the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art at QAGOMA, Australia (2024–25) and a solo presentation, Desolation, at A2Z Art Gallery in Paris in 2024. In 2025, her Time series was selected as a finalist for the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize, where the work was presented at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid.
Artist CV
Artwork Showcase
Hallowed Lands 21
Cotton, sawdust, mud, mother of pearl, gold and silver leaf, mineral pigments and lacquer resin on wood
40 × 24 × 1.7 cm
2026
Hallowed Lands 21
Cotton, sawdust, mud, mother of pearl, gold and silver leaf, mineral pigments and lacquer resin on wood
40 × 24 × 1.7 cm
2026
Hallowed Lands 24
Cotton, sawdust, mud, mother of pearl, gold and silver leaf, mineral pigments and lacquer resin on wood
40 × 25.6 × 1.7 cm
2026
Hallowed Lands 24
Cotton, sawdust, mud, mother of pearl, gold and silver leaf, mineral pigments and lacquer resin on wood
40 × 25.6 × 1.7 cm
2026
Hallowed Lands 22
Cotton, sawdust, mud, mother of pearl, gold and silver leaf, mineral pigments and lacquer resin on wood
40 × 25.6 × 1.7 cm
2026
Hallowed Lands 22
Cotton, sawdust, mud, mother of pearl, gold and silver leaf, mineral pigments and lacquer resin on wood
40 × 25.6 × 1.7 cm
2026
Hallowed Lands 26
Cotton, sawdust, mud, mother of pearl, gold and silver leaf, mineral pigments and lacquer resin on wood
40 × 25.6 × 1.7 cm
2026
Hallowed Lands 26
Cotton, sawdust, mud, mother of pearl, gold and silver leaf, mineral pigments and lacquer resin on wood
40 × 25.6 × 1.7 cm
2026
Hallowed Lands 21
Cotton, sawdust, mud, mother of pearl, gold and silver leaf, mineral pigments and lacquer resin on wood
40 × 24 × 1.7 cm
2026
Hallowed Lands 22
Cotton, sawdust, mud, mother of pearl, gold and silver leaf, mineral pigments and lacquer resin on wood
40 × 25.6 × 1.7 cm
2026
Hallowed Lands 24
Cotton, sawdust, mud, mother of pearl, gold and silver leaf, mineral pigments and lacquer resin on wood
40 × 25.6 × 1.7 cm
2026
Hallowed Lands 26
Cotton, sawdust, mud, mother of pearl, gold and silver leaf, mineral pigments and lacquer resin on wood
40 × 25.6 × 1.7 cm
2026
