Traces of Her ❥ The Story Behind the Title

When people ask me what Traces of Her is about, I usually give the short answer: it's inspired by my grandmother.

But the longer answer is a little more complicated.

I grew up with my grandmother in Vietnam, and like many grandchildren, I only knew her as Bà [my grandmother]. To me, she was simply the person who was always there. She fanned me during power outages to help me sleep in the heat, watched Chinese dramas with me, prepared my favorite meals, and quietly took care of all the little things that made me feel loved and safe. She always seemed to know what I needed, even before I said a word.

It wasn't until I got older that I realized I knew almost nothing about the woman she had been before becoming all of those things.

Who was she when she was my age?

What did she dream about?

What made her laugh?

Did she have close friends she couldn't stop talking to? Did she ever feel stubborn, adventurous, or even a little rebellious?

Those are questions I can no longer ask.

That realization stayed with me. It made me think about how easily we see our grandparents only through the roles they've had in our lives. We forget that they were once young too. They had dreams, fears, friendships, moments of joy, and countless ordinary days that shaped who they became.

Traces of Her grew from that curiosity.

The paintings in this exhibition are not portraits of my grandmother, nor are they attempts to recreate history. They are moments I imagine she might have lived

❥ small, quiet scenes that could have existed somewhere in the past.

In a way, these paintings are not about finding the answers, but about giving space to the stories that may have never been told.

Perhaps I will never truly know who my grandmother was beyond the memories I have of her. But in my imagination, I create moments she might have lived, thoughts she might have carried, and stories she might have kept within herself.

Maybe these imagined fragments are another way of keeping her presence alive.