140 portrait sketches of Vietnamese Heroic Mothers of painters Dang Ai Viet will be displayed at the Southern Women's Museum in Ho Chi Minh City on October 18.
The exhibits are selected from 288 works of Vietnamese Heroic Mothers in 24 cities and provinces that the artist met during her trans-country trip.
The paintings depict the different faces of Heroic Mothers whose sons and daughters died in the American War. The works show their happiness and their sorrow.
As a former soldier herself and a mother, the painter understands the pain the Heroic Mothers had to suffer. “They are typical images of Vietnamese women’s sacrifice and indomitable spirit. I want to save all their faces for the next generations,” she said.
“I am a lucky people. I have abundant chances to meet, talk and kiss many heroic mothers. Almost all of them have a great deep pain. I have painted while crying several times” she added.
Painter Dang Ai Viet, 62, is the wife of the late People's Artist Pham Khac. She has travelled from Ho Chi Minh City to Ha Noi for painting hundreds of Heroic Mothers across the nation.
She divide her project titled “The journey of time” into three periods. In the first stage from February 19 to August 19, she completed 24 portraits of Vietnamese heroic mothers in 24 cities and provinces from the southern province of Dong Nai to the North.
In the second phase from August 25 to February, 2011, she has drawn Heroic Mothers in Ho Chi Minh City and Mekong Delta region.
She will paint Heroic Mothers in some northern provinces in the last step to be kicked off in March, 2011.
The project is expected to finish in September, 2011.
