Rustic Fragrance, Urban Desire — portrait of a haft-rural, haft-urban maiden

I have always loved poetry. First for its rhythm, and then for the way words are honed into sharp precision. Some verses play with language in ways that sound strange—hard to grasp fully—yet they stay with you. Back in high school, a classmate once asked me to explain the line “Not yet sinful, but already flooded with remorse” in Đinh Hùng’s Kỳ nữ. I knew it, I understood its meaning, but I chose not to explain. Because no explanation could carry across the vibration it left in me. A poem must be lived through—felt—to be understood; otherwise, any explanation is nothing more than cliché.

Poetry has lingered in me ever since. I believe a person is the sum of everything that touches them: books, memories, the people around them. Poetry enters my paintings just as naturally. I want my works to resemble poems—to suggest more than they describe.

This painting was finished before it had a name. I am drawn to female faces, frozen in a single expression. That is why there is always a woman’s portrait somewhere in my work. To me, painting a face is like writing a poem: it requires rhythm, pauses, and accents. Beauty lies in that rhythm—in its rise and fall, its trembling, its hesitation. I love illustration, I love metaphorical details, but I do not want the viewer to sink into definitions. A painting with the quality of poetry is not a mere illustration of verse. For me, it is entirely a matter of technique. Every accent is a way of shaping rhythm, turning it into lines and the play of light and shadow.

In other words, I try to construct a discreet eroticism through the pulse of lines and the interlacing of dark and light, so the viewer hovers in a state of “almost.” And within these accents I am always searching for what I call a “visual G-spot”—the point where the brush pauses just enough to create a climax, holding the viewer in a half-suspended, yet burning intensity.

I have worked with a Wacom tablet for many years. While others rely on software to perfect their lines, I prefer the opposite. I love the natural tremor. Working on a detached tablet—eyes fixed on one place, hands moving in another—is hard to control, but it creates the exact micro-vibration I need. I never sketch on paper; I usually begin directly on the Photoshop screen, laying down dark masses and then erasing to carve out depth, like a charcoal drawing in digital form. Lines sometimes sharp, sometimes blurred, keep the rhythm and the breath alive. Technique, after all, is only there so that poetry has room to slip into the image.

When I finally put the pen down, the face appeared just as I had long imagined: a girl half rural, half urban—still scented with the fields, yet shimmering with the city. Not an illustration, not a subject, just strokes passing through. And in that moment I remembered Nguyễn Bính, his old verse, and I gave the portrait of a half-rural, half-urban maiden its name.

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PEASANTRY PLAINESS - after Nguyễn Bính’s “Chân Quê”

(Translated/adapted by ChatGPT)

Yesterday you came back from town,

I waited and waited

on the dike at the edge of the village.

Velvet scarf, silk trousers rustling,

a snap-button gown—

oh, how you unsettled me!

Where is the coarse silk halter,

the tussore sash you dyed in spring?

Where is the four-panel dress,

the crow-wing scarf,

the plain black slub-silk pants?

I fear to speak lest it offends you,

yet still I beg:

please keep your rustic ways.

Like that day you went to the temple,

dressed simply—

that was enough to please me.

Lime blossoms opening in a lime grove,

our parents and we are country folk.

Yesterday you came back from town—

the fragrance of fields,

the native wind,

have drifted away a little.

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Poetry cannot truly be translated—so let the painting carry the feeling.

Own the Artwork