The ACE Gallery, in the insurance giant?s Woodbourne Avenue headquarters, is the scene of a new exhibition.

Entitled ?Contemporary Vietnamese Art?, it features the work of six Vietnamese artists whose artistic direction and themes are influenced by their country?s traditions and history.

Julie Sylvester, director of exhibitions at the ACE Gallery, spent months researching and assembling the works, and explains that ?the artists portrayed in this exhibition have vastly different styles and approaches to painting?.

?While an independent path has been forged by each of them and their visions are boldly their own, they are unified by the fact that their work is rooted in the peaceful traditions of Vietnamese daily life,? she says.

All create work that is distinct from the art produced for the system of commercial galleries geared to their country?s thriving tourist industry.

Born in Hanoi in 1960, is a well-known figure in contemporary Vietnamese art. He did not attend school until he was 13. A childhood without playthings and food left him searching for something in which to find an interest. This materialised when he discovered and began to observe the aquatic life he found in small ponds. His fascination with tadpoles, tiny swimming bodies, and a new micro universe began at an early age and remains the source of his paintings and ink drawings. His delicate series, ?Flowing?, is a reference to the Buddhist concept, and reveals a calm and peaceful movement of the elements.is a colourful character and driving force of his generation who believes that the cultivation of an image of the artist as a commanding presence is important in contemporary Vietnamese society. His subjects are often political and directly reflect his feelings about current world events. He regards human nature as his icon and hates war, violence and human hypocrisy.is a female artist in a man?s world of painting, and her contemplative and soulful works may at first seem to convey a feeling of complacency. She has a mission to depict the solitary life of Vietnamese women in their simple elegance. She paints Vietnamese life, indoors and out, where women do the work, suffer, feel loneliness, are beautiful, remain close to nature, provide and ensure the future. Born in 1961 south of Hanoi, she worked in business for years until she found the inspiration to pursue her dream of being a painter. This deliberate and determined resolve is reflected in her paintings.was born in 1971, and the difference of a decade is significantly marked by a change in style and use of materials, yet does not deny the very real influence of tradition and the memory of the recent history of war. The artist grew up in a peasant family outside Hanoi, and his painting is based on his earliest childhood fascinations. His ideas are big, his works are big, and his exuberant talent allows him to tackle his subjects boldly and with profound emotion. His large works are stunning. Thanh is interested in the representation of generations of Vietnam?s changing society. ?s art has as its foundation a scholarship of Buddhist text and illustration which he acquired as a child raised by monks of a pagoda in Thanh Hoa province. Between the ages of seven to 17 he studied calligraphy, Chinese and Norn, the ancient Vietnamese script which is based on Chinese characters. His source of inspiration comes from within and includes ancient rites and festivals, village stories and legends. His subject is often the conflict between the spiritual and material life created by a rapidly changing society which distances itself from its past, and the need for balance. Born in Ha Tay in 1972, Le Quoc Viet is a true example of Vietnam?s very prolific artists. is the youngest artist in the exhibition. Born in Hanoi in 1975, the year of the fall of the South and the airlift of the last Americans from the American Embassy, she works by day as an editor in a publishing house, and paints in the tranquillity of the evening in rooms on the upper floor of her house, where she sees bright stars and the large leaves of the foliage in the night sky. She paints what is closest: herself, her husband, her thoughts.

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