“His three-dimensional sculptures and two dimensional paintings are equally exciting and soothing, disturbing and comforting symbolic and non-objective alternately pulsating between fear and smiling bliss. They are the transpositions of deep emotions into visible sensation. After having seen them one feels like having been part of the suffering and redemption of a deeply feeling artist who can share the turmoil of his soul through quiet whispers and loud screams from his palette. As one of the boat-people who spent 28 days on a motorless practically rudderless boat in which the 40 persons could stand only, threatened by natural catastrophes and human evil he arrived onto safe ground, a shore without danger where he could relax physically and mentally.
In some of these exhausted sufferers the memory of these ordeals turned into psychological handicaps; in a blessed artist like Trieu they become first-rate art: eloquent paintings and sculptures. The haunting ordeal inspired and still inspires him towards understanding the beauty of creation. He sees the world in an alternating rhythm of tensions and relaxations, catastrophes and redemption.
He paints and produces his concrete sculptures in an individual way also. He uses different materials and techniques when painting. Oil paint is his medium but he applies it on different surfaces with different tools.
The bulk of these are applied on canvas and on boards. But some of these boards are the reverse of old paintings, acquired on the flee-market for the surface only. He uses brushes, spatulas and sometimes his bare hands and fingers to apply his powerful basic color or his composite pastels. For his sculptures he uses concrete a material with a time-limit. Everything has to be formed in less than 13 hours as after this time the concrete becomes rigid and cannot be formed anymore. He plays with the possibilities of collages also, using tiny pieces of paper of different shades.
Alternating the feeling of anguish and relief, Evil and Mercy he makes the viewer of these beautiful works of art a witness of his tensions and his relaxation. This gifted artist haunted by the memory of a nightmare and a dream shares with us all the turmoil of danger and the bliss of his safe arrival into freedom.”
Susan Lenkey, Ph.D.
Professor Emerita of Art History
Stanford University, CA
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