JOURNEY IN THE PAINTINGS OF TRIEU HAI DAO There is something uniquely intimate in the paintings of Trieu Hai Dao. This is partly due to his choice of abstractionism. Like many pioneer abstractionists at the beginning of the twentieth century, his abstract art cuts at the root of the classical idea that a painting should portray reality or imitate nature. The artist Mondrian, for example, stated his strong belief in his 1919 declaration-like writing that “the cultivated man of today is gradually turning away from natural things, and his life is becoming more and more abstract.” In the same way Kandinsky explained clearly that “when religion, science and morality (the last through the strong hand of Nietzsche) are shaken and when the outer supports threaten to fall, man turns his gaze away from the external and towards himself.” Since then, a painter encounters what Malevich calls “the experience of objectlessness” distinct from external nature (landscape, form). This experience not only opens to the artist new horizons never before discovered, but also invites the viewer into a completely new reality. It demands that we go further, deeper than the surface of colors and lines in order to touch the nature (essence) of the painting. Painting is no longer a picture as a representation of objects but as a graphic representation of the painter’s state of mind. The paintings of Trieu present to the viewer his unique intimacy. In a world composed of signs and symbols, where is the Rosetta Stone to decode their meaning? Critiques of abstractionism arise from a tendency to underestimate inner life (which is boundless) and the resources of the imagination (which is unlimited). From the time of Mondrian who believed that a balance composes the two simple positions which form the right angle, and an equilibrium generally requires a large area of non-color (white, black, grey) and a smaller area of primary color (red, blue, yellow); today abstractionism has progressed and continues to offer new discoveries. Mr. Trieu does not stop at the horizontal and vertical lines of Mondrian, nor does he drip colors on canvas laid on ground, like Pollock... Trieu does not complicate the abstraction of his art by naming them by number. He comes closer to the observer by giving his paintings names: Meeting Point, Transcendent Night, Coming and Going, Endless Journey, Angry Sea, Dream…. Trieu’s escape on the sea has left a remarkable trace on his paintings as the colors red and black are reminders of a horrible past. Trieu’s new collection shows his self-reconciliation. The paintings such as Peaceful Day Coming, Distant Land, Lovers Inseparable, with their soft duotone, and A Peaceful Dawn, with its pure blue of sea and sky, demonstrate a certain state of newly rediscovered serenity in his soul. The paintings of Trieu are the result of his long journey of escape from Vietnam. As many other journeys are recorded in words and published as books, Trieu’s paintings present a different form of expression of feelings, recorded in a different grammar and vocabulary, but telling the story of the same journey to exile, initiated by the predestined events of 1975. LAM VAN SANG