Yui Nguyen
Academic Artist
10
Years in Practice
Hoi An Old Town
Phố Hội
Medium:
Watercolor
Size:
60 x 40 cm
23.6 × 15.7 in
Year:
2016
Warm ochres and red tile tones stage a compact streetscape, framed by two trees and a central gate. The roofs and wall planes are simplified into clear blocks, so depth reads shallow and rhythmic rather than panoramic. The palette echoes the yellow façades and tiled roofs that characterize Hoi An’s old quarter, where historic merchant houses and assembly halls form a continuous streetscape.
The title points directly to Hoi An’s heritage core, a UNESCO listed trading port whose plan and buildings embody a blend of Vietnamese, Chinese, and Japanese influences, including iconic features like clan assembly halls and the Japanese Covered Bridge. These references clarify the painting’s emphasis on gate architecture and tapering rooflines as signifiers of place.
about the artist
Yui Nguyen is a writer and visual artist in Ho Chi Minh City. He contributes cultural pieces to Vietcetera, where his work connects everyday life to design, language, and craft, in a clear, conversational voice. In the studio he moves between painting, calligraphy, and language experiments. He co-leads Our Vietnamese Project with Pham Phan Nhan, a research practice that treats Vietnamese as a living system inside computational art.
In 2025 the project was named a Lumen Prize Literature and Poetry Award finalist. The shortlist credits Nhan Phan and Yui Nguyen for work that probes the monosyllabic structure of Vietnamese through custom tools and poetics.