Nguyen Lam, one of Vietnam's revered masters of art, was born in the city of Can Tho, Vietnam in 1939. Nguyen Lam sees his artistic career in three stages; the first stage is when he experimented with various artistic methods with an emphasis on learning, the second stage is when he started to paint semi-abstract and abstract pieces and the third stage is when he decided to focus entirely on abstract. His transition to semi-abstraction brought him fame and international recognition where he was one of 3 Vietnamese artists selected to participate in the Paris Biennale (1961, 1963 & 1965).

 

Meditation is an integral part of Nguyen Lam’s artistic process. To him, his paintings are an exercise in spirituality; a manifestation from the internal energy of the artist and the vitality of life itself. He views every painting as a journey and embarks upon it by first meditating in front of a blank canvas. When meditation yields artistic creation through a surge in emotion and energy, he projects it onto the canvas and begins his journey.

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His paintings appear in permanent collections of the National Gallery Singapore, the Vietnam National Museum of Fine Arts, the Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts and private collections in Europe, Asia and the United States.