A saturated red ground frames an allover field of fractured color and metallic glints. The surface is built through successive coats of lacquer, curing, wet sanding, and polish, so light seems to move through the strata rather than sit on top. There is no fixed focal point. Instead, the eye tracks across pooled pigments, cut edges, and exposed leaf, reading the painting as a single continuous event.

For Thao Huynh, known for figurative lacquer portraits of women in áo dài, this work marks a deliberate pivot toward material abstraction. The composition compresses depth and privileges the skin of the painting, letting process, touch, and reflection become the subject.

The even distribution of incident invites comparison to the allover compositions of Abstract Expressionism, while the emphasis on texture and matter recalls European Art Informel and Dubuffet’s interest in haptic surfaces. Gold leaf functions as a structural light source, a choice that resonates with the flat radiance associated with Klimt’s Golden Phase and its dialogue with Byzantine mosaics. These parallels are formal, not genealogical, and they clarify how Huynh uses lacquer’s reflective layers to suspend illusion and make light itself the active content.