For Le Thua Tien, lacquer is treated as both a choice of medium and subject matter. Since his 1999 Mirror series (later titled Reflections), Tien’s explorations of lacquer have moved away from the traditional method of adding further layers of material to manipulate the lacquer surface, preferring to solely attend to the elemental color of the lacquer itself – a dense black – and experimenting only with its depth and reflective quality.
Resembling the shape of a portal that could lead to another dimension, the polished surface of Reflections is crafted using traditional Vietnamese sơn ta. Its frames, on the other hand, are made of the same plaster that builders in Hue, Vietnam, would use for the construction of palaces and tombs during feudal times. With minimal references to the outside world, this installation work – consisting of four large “portals” forming an almost enclosed circle – invites us to become the lone protagonists amidst Tien’s landscape of infinite darkness. Immersed in an act of self-reflection, as we watch ourselves, an “other” from behind the lacquered surface looks back at us. As Tien contemplates: “It is precisely this encounter between one’s selves that produces an extraordinary experience of curiosity and awe; but it also provokes a kind of primordial, instinctual fear of the unknown – when human’s finite and impermanent being comes face to face with Mother Nature’s infinite and eternal existence.”