A Thousand Flowers Racing to Bloom

In September 2024, after seventeen years waiting for his family's immigration papers to clear, the Vietnamese painter and poet Doãn Nguyên arrived in the United States. He already had the title for his first American exhibition.

The title comes from a Vietnamese phrase for a moment of collective flourishing, when many things bloom at once. Doãn uses it to describe both his canvases and the work of beginning a life again in a new country. The paintings were made over his first year in St. Louis, in the evenings after shifts at a factory, in a bedroom and sometimes a bathroom, wherever the light was good.

“All things in nature, when they have enough sunlight, enough energy, enough life force, will bloom at the right moment. And it takes time.”

The works are organized around the four seasons, which Doãn treats as the seasons of a life. Each painting is paired with an original poem, presented in Vietnamese and English. Five percent of proceeds went to the Very Asian Foundation.