HUONG DODINH

Dodinh was born in Soc Trang, Vietnam in 1945. Forced to flee the country, her family sought refuge in Paris in 1953 after the outbreak of the First Indochina War. Dodinh has lived and worked in Paris ever since, cultivating a monastic, solitary life in service of her artistic pursuits. The artist’s exhibition in Seoul marks not only her first solo exhibition in Asia, but also a deeply personal return to the continent—Dodinh has only visited Vietnam one time since 1953, in 1993. The title of her forthcoming exhibition, VIE | VIDE, meaning ‘life | emptiness,’ encapsulates the essence of Dodinh’s practice, which centres on light’s phenomenological nuances and collisions of contrasting elements, ideas, and histories—cycle of life, light and darkness, and East and West.

For nearly six decades, Dodinh has devoted her painting practice to three central tenets: light, density, and transparency. Her works explore the fluidity of line, form, and negative space to create elegant minimalist compositions. By nurturing a private, intensely insular, and regimented way of life, the artist has developed a distinctive process that blurs the boundaries between art and everyday life. Working alone and without any assistants in her Paris atelier, Dodinh takes personal ownership over every step in her process, from sourcing mineral powders for her pigments in Provence to mounting her canvases and applying her paint. Renowned for creating her own pigments and organic binders by hand, Dodinh applies thin layers of paint multiple times to forge transparent yet dense surfaces. Her use of natural materials produces vibrant visual effects through absorptions and reflections of light.

Dodinh’s exhibition with Pace in Seoul will focus on her K.A. series, which she began in the early 2000s. In these paintings, delicate geometries are set against almost translucent backgrounds. Subtle lines and colours seem to trace the movements of a dancer, serving as pathways between Dodinh’s inner and outer worlds. Featuring K.A. works created in the past year as well as a composition from 2011, the presentation will showcase the artist’s ability to imbue her abstractions with radiance and depth.

Recent exhibitions by Dodinh include her 2021 retrospective at the Guimet Museum in Paris and her solo presentation at the Museo Correr in Venice during the 2022 Venice Biennale. Through her work, Dodinh strives to harmonise relationships and engage in a meaningful exchange with the world around her. As she has said, ‘Art is a process of opening oneself to others.’