A multi panel composition stages a procession of women in áo dài before a palimpsest of Ho Chi Minh City landmarks, where historic facades and modern skylines share the same pictorial field. The lacquer surface is built in successive layers, then cut back, sanded, and polished to reveal buried tones and seams of gold leaf that thread through the scene like memory lines. Figures and architecture are held in the same warm register, so no single element dominates. The eye moves from reflective highlights across patterned garments to architectural silhouettes, reading time as a layered surface rather than a linear story.

The work clarifies Thao Huynh’s core interests. Her focus on women is rendered with restraint and quiet poise, while the material intelligence of lacquer carries the theme of remembrance. Gold leaf catches ambient light, turning reflection into a narrative device that links youthful presence to inherited places. As an artist trained in traditional lacquer and committed to a modern visual language, Huynh uses process to bind biography and city, intimacy and history, into one luminous field.