As a child, Bùi Hữu Hùng was always captivated by traditional Vietnamese folk melodies and the Western classical music that was making its way into Vietnam. 

This painting, perhaps, was born from that very inspiration: The first movement of a concerto inspired by folk songs.

At the end of 2024, the artist applied a new material to his fabric paintings to build up their surface texture. The composition of the red painting resembles a landscape, with a low foreground rising against a vast night sky. The perspective is ambiguous; we might be looking at the upper edge of a wall or at a coastline from above, marked by traces of human presence. The sound of waves crashing against the shore shifts with each moment. The sea has no beginning, no end. Is the work illustrating an eternal song?

But perhaps it’s more intriguing to think of it this way: the painting doesn’t illustrate music – it is music. It is a painterly variation. The artwork doesn’t contain the folk melody; it was born of it. The artist doesn’t show us the tune – he absorbs it, transforms it, and lets it emerge in the visual language.