Praising DIEM PHUNG THI is a hard task. For thirty years, critics, practitioners, and even the non-professional have been always praising her works. So has Malreaux, and he has recognized her talents in his personal letter sent in 1971.
However, the real devotion of an artist does not come from praises but from the impact of her works. Indeed, DIEM PHUNG THI’s sculptural works have been exhibited in Vietnam sky, her native land of childhood where she won the first award of sculpture in 1962. Her works have travelled to France where she is living, spending her time between Vallauris and Fontenay-aux-Roses and to Italy, Denmark and Germany.
If DIEM PHUNG THI has been recognized in various countries of different cultures, she has also been naturally recognized in her own works. These works have crossed between the two cultures, the Southeast Asia where she was born and the Occident, where she set her foot in the land of France in 1948. These two influences do not confront each other but intercalate each other and supplement each other in all her sculptural works.
She often obtains inspiration from the Orient and combines artistic techniques that she has learned from Paris and from the lessons given her by Volti.
We welcome DIEM PHUNG THI, a female who is still rare in the sculptural world. The femininity found in her works has a round shape, reminiscent of peace, sweetness and motherhood.
Even up to the present moment, the two countries which she had close ties, France and Vietnam, have often commemorated and glorified her. Nearly her forty works have been warmly greeted in Vietnam; one of those works has embellished Fontenay-aux-Roses since 1991. Her last devotion is an art center which will be soon founded in Hue, an ancient city of Vietnam.
I hope that today, the exhibition of her works in the City where she has chosen to live, demonstrates our pride and happiness because we regard her as a native of Fontenay-aux- Roses.
ALAIN MOIZAN
MAYOR OF FONTENAY-AUX-ROSES
