PRESENTATION: Bao Vuong-The Waves’ Breathing

Bao Vuong in his artistic practice, whether it’s painting, installation or performance, Bao tries to reconstruct buried memories by working with remembrance. In his black monochrome painting series entitled “ The Crossing “, the viewer can see and experience the contemplation of “ light in the darkness “. Between presence and absence, softness and roughness, the imaginary and the interpretation collide, leaving us to face ourselves and our own history. In the distance, hope for a better future looms.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Ceysson & Bénétière Gallery Archive

Fragile and distant, a glimmer trembles in the darkness, like an echo through time and space. In Bao Vuong’s new series of works, The Crossing”, that are on show in his solo exhibition “The Waves’ Breathing”, light is no longer just a breakthrough: it is a presence, a revelation, a breath suspended between sea and sky. The light emerging from Bao Vuong’s nocturnal paintings is not merely aesthetic; it reflects a deep memory, that of a child carried on the waves, caught between hope and peril. In 1979, only a few months old, Bao and his family fled Vietnam on a makeshift boat, entrusting themselves to the sea. The ocean was a dangerous way to escape, a moving frontier between life and death. Pirate attacks, days of drifting without water or food, and sudden arrests: many tragedies loomed over this crossing. After several days and nights of drifting, engine dead, and supplies exhausted, a single providential cloud in an empty sky saved the poor thirsty souls aboard before a ship finally appeared on the horizon, like a providential light piercing through the darkness. The child who seemed fated to be lost to the abyss was saved, along with all the people on that boat. France became his country of adoption, a land of refuge where life could begin anew, where the child grew up and found his path: art. But his body and mind keep hidden traumas, and it is only much later that his personal history with the sea resurfaced through the first of his black paintings. To paint is to dig into the night, to push aside darkness so that a light, a breath, a presence, may emerge. The blackness in “The Crossing” series is far from void. It is a matrix, a space of learning and transformation. It is the necessary background for light to arise—that force that guides us through life’s ordeals. Bao Vuong explores the duality of existence: doubt and hope, loss and rebirth, losing oneself to be found again. Every shadow holds a light waiting to be revealed, an essential truth embodied by the concept of Yin and Yang. These works are not static—they pulse, whisper, and resonate with the stories of those who have gazed into the night, lost in its vastness, beauty and mysteries. There is a particular light coming from the paintings of this new exhibition. They are nocturnal landscapes, drawing the eye in search of a reference point, a clearing, a passage toward the unknown. Darkness dissolves, opening to luminous bursts, to subtle flashes that vibrate on the sea’s surface, revealing new spaces. Is it a call? A promise? An illusion? In these works, light seems to emanate from beyond, radiating into a space suspended between matter and void, presence and absence. It is like a divine whisper, a celestial glow piercing the thickness of night. The horizon brightens and becomes a threshold: a promised land, a long hoped-for destination, an invitation to continue the journey of life. The sea is a living entity, a breathing force that envelops and transforms us . Our breath changes when we venture into it. Lungs fill with salty air, and this immersion brings forth renewal. Leaving the shore is like leaving an old self behind, surrendering to transformation. The air of the sea washes, erases, prepares one to renewal, and the unknown of discovery. Its ebb and flow is a rhythm, a pulse that rocks every journey, a maternal breath inviting rebirth. Every crossing, whether real or internal, is a plunge into the unknown. Like wandering souls looking for a gateway, like distant stars tracing invisible paths, the light in these works is not merely an optical phenomenon. It is a presence, a mysterious force that watches and guides the viewer. This radiance, one might believe from another world, is the same that once saved the artist as a child, the same he still holds within and that shines for all those seeking a shore. Through “The Crossing”, Bao Vuong echoes these sea stories of exiles, dead, and survivors, and also of the adventurers we all are, for, as he often says: “We are all survivors.” Bao Vuong has become a keeper of memory, a witness to those silent crossings the sea holds in its depths. In his paintings, he makes the invisible visible, giving form to the nights of those who journey, echoing the breath of these waves that make destiny and rock a life.

Photo: Bao Vuong, The Crossing 301, 2025, oil and acrylic, aluminium powder and wax on canvas, 140 x 220 cm , 55.12 x 86.61 in, © Bao Vuong, Courtesy the artist and Ceysson & Bénétière Gallery

Info: Ceysson & Bénétière Gallery, 956 Madison Avenue New York, NY, USA, Duration: 0/3-17/5/2025, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.ceyssonbenetiere.com/