The more than 30 works on display are all abstract paintings.
those which, during the period when the very term
"abstractionism" was tabooed here as something heretic, he
carefully kept hidden at the bottom of a tin box and only took out
to show to some of his closest friends on rare occasions of high
elation, not without casting frequent watchful glancetoward the
entrance, as though fearing to be caught in the act of doing

something illegal. Those works can be situated in the
early 70s. i.e. at the hottest of the US air war against
North Vietnam. Thumbing through his notebooks of
that time. I read these lines:"... to stick fast to realities
and thoroughly grasp them not to copy them but to
create an artistic reality" which give me to understand that, all things considered, abstract are represents the
reality of what can be called "soulscape". We are
acquainted here with a Bui Xuan Phai more ethereal.
more fanciful in coloring, figuration and composition,
with unbridled expressions, but for all that, always the

same, indeed, despite the unusualness of these works, one
recognize Phai in those distant reflections and echods on
constitutes a constant in his creative subconscious: old str
with mossy roofs, scenes of children celebrating Mid-Aut
Festival Bui Xuan Phai's abstract painting widens the view
scope of emotive perception to a boundless amplitude. On
nor -figurative dimension, too, he is a master.

Duong Tuong