As seen in San Jose Mercury News, The Guide, Artist Reflects Heritage in Work, December 2-8, 2004

Above Photos from left to right:  

1) Trinh Mai works on her triptych, "We Fight With Our Fists the Truth"   2) Painter, Trinh Mai, who lives in the Santa Teresa area and is an art student at San Jose State University, discusses her triptych, "We Fight With Our Fists The Truth," with Robert Chiarito, associate professor of art at San Jose State   3) Detail from Panel II of "We Fight With Our Fists the Truth"

EXHIBIT PAINTS STORIES OF VIETNAMESE IN U.S.
DISPLAY AT KING LIBRARY DEPICTS EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA, VIETNAM 

by Hong Dao Nguyen

Trinh Mai's oil painting, "Remember," of a mother holding her son, is crafted in shades of black and brown, but Mai said the work is meant to express hope within tragedy. She describes the story on the canvas as a mother giving her boy the opportunity to leave home for something better while she stays back. In it, the mother gazes at her son while he looks unabashedly forward. 

The piece was in part inspired by the journey of Mai's parents from war-torn Vietnam in 1975, and friends' personal stories of leaving that country for a better life. It's also a universal story about sacrifice, said Mai, 26, who lives in the Santa Teresa area.

Mai's painting is among dozens of pieces on display at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library as part of the "Traces of the Hundred Viets" exhibit. It is hosted by three Vietnamese-based non-profit organizations in a union called "Humanity Through Arts," through which the artwork will be auctioned to the public Saturday for charity.

"Most of us are immigrants, most of us are minorities, and most of us have so much passion we want to lay out on the canvas," said Jenny Do, a curator and artist who submitted her won painting, "Elements," to the show. The work of 20 mainly Vietnamese-American artists reflects their experiences both here and in Vietnam.

"Traces of the Hundred Viets" alludes to the myth that Vietnamese people were born from a union of a dragon and a fairy who produced 100 offspring. They dispersed, multiplied and created the Vietnamese people. Artists featured in the show mirror the children in this myth - like them, they have unique qualities. Although varying in age, background and stature in the art community, they share a common heritage.

In small quarters in a section of the library, panels displaying dozens of the pieces, including paintings, sculptures and photographs. One corner holds Hai-Ho Tran's enlarged photographs of Hmong people, an ethnic minority in Southeast Asia. His lens captured a baby obliviously settled in the basket of his mother's bike, and another of a 6-year-old Hmong girl selling handicrafts on a sidewalk. Tran, who grew up in Vietnam, said he wanted to express the beauty of his subjects' culture in the photos.

Nearby is Kai Hoang's fiery mixed-media painting, "Deliverance," that centers around themes of death and cremation. Hoang, 56, is a Franklin McKinley School District liason who has shown his work in Vietnam, Oakland and the San Jose Museum of Art. He said the piece, in part, evokes memories of his father's and brothers' deaths, but at his age, he is thinking about the afterlife.

Besides highlighting the artists' lives and work, the story behind the exhibit is one that organizers said is an accomplishment in itself. A network of people in the Vietnamese based non-profit community have batted around the idea of hosting an event for years. Three non-profits - Creating Opportunities in Vietnam, or CoVN, Friends of Hue Foundation, and the Vietnamese American Professional Alliance - have joined to create the venture. 

CoVN helps disadvantaged women in Vietnam through entrepreneurship. The Professionals Alliance is a network of Vietnamese-Americans who encourage local professional and personal development, and Friends of Hue helps the people in the Thua Thien Hue province in Vietnam who are victims of natural disasters. It has also started an American-run orphanage in Vietnam. Organizers from the groups were looking for a way to integrate artists into the project and help promote their work. 

Bryan Cong Do, an exhibit founder, said one of the goals was to push the largely Vietnamese artwork into the mainstream. 

"We want to share our art with the world," said Do, who has volunteered for the Professionals Alliance and Friends of Hue. "For non-Vietnamese people, when you say Vietnam, I think most of them will say the Vietnam War and that's all they can think of - and that's not fair."

For Mai, 26, her Vietnamese-American experience has been different from some of the older Vietnamese artists who grew up in Vietnam during the war. Mai thinks about what her parents went through and the sacrifices they've made, and it is now showing in her work, including, "Remember."

"I can't ever fully understand, but I can interpret," she says.