Flesh and Leaf, Sap and Seed

Rất tiếc, mục này chỉ tồn tại ở English.

Opening: 19 Mar 2026 – in the presence of the artist
Exhibition: 12 Mar – 25 Apr 2026
Galerie Bao
49 avenue Parmentier, 75011 Paris

From the organizer:

Hà My Nguyễn (Ha-My Nguyen) transforms the gallery into an uncanny ecosystem where hybrid fruits and female forms germinate in ceramic, watercolor, and drawing. Evoking the tropical landscapes of her Vietnamese childhood and the displacement of her Parisian present, Hà My nurtures a garden of metamorphosis where bodies and plants intertwine as living metaphors of memory, longing, and feminine desire. Sensual yet unsettling, these works resist stereotypes, asserting a poetic survival strategy against societal norms. In this tropical surrealism, Hà My’s garden becomes a quiet rebellion, where regeneration and feminine power unfurl freely.

At its heart stands a sculptural tree, its branches, filaments, and leaves sprawling throughout the space. The peculiar fruits that populate this garden—both humanoid and vegetal—serve as potent emblems of cultural and emotional memory. The in-situ installation appeals to all our senses, provoking a feeling of warmth, familiarity, disturbing familiarity or disturbing strangeness.

Rooted in an intimate dialogue with her subconscious, Hà My’s work expresses a liberated, luxuriant femininity far from stereotypes. The living metaphors of fruits and flowers mutate beyond mere objects of contemplation into objects of questioning and poetic survival. Her use of aposematism—vivid, soft pink hues and undeniable eroticism—functions as a protective mechanism, revealing a playful tension between artistic expectation and cultural coding.

These forms verge on the threatening, stirring questions about desire—where eroticism oscillates between fear, distrust, and fruitfulness. Resurrecting a tropical surrealism, her drawings blur the lines between reality and dreams, crafting a haunting, poetic space.

Flesh and Leaf, Sap and Seed offers a feminine and poetic counter-narrative to tropical clichés, the garden of her artworks is the place where she questions the role of women in our normative society. Navigating through Vietnamese and French societal stereotypes, the artist expresses the oppression of women’s desire. These feminine hybrids are not only the product of Ha My’s nostalgia and displacement, they reflect a time when feminine desire can still be viewed as abnormal, dangerous, hysterical. Therefore, the peculiar forms, fruits, creatures become a metaphorical vessel of memory and desire, of freedom, of regenerating lust.

Hà My Nguyễn (b.1991) grew up in the mountainous regions of central Vietnam near the border with Laos, immersed in the freedom and rhythms of the natural landscape. She studied traditional lacquer at the Hue University of Arts, where she developed her practice before relocating to Paris in 2018.

Hà My’s artistic research delves into marginalized knowledge embedded in everyday life, such as the peculiar fruits, wild plants, and inherited cooking recipes that have long nurtured communities, particularly women, in her native region. By engaging with these practices, she explores the intersections of femininity, nature, and resilience, while critically examining the erasures and transmissions of these forms of knowledge across generations and geographies.

Working across ceramics, drawing, and installation, Hà My’s practice visualizes forms that inhabit the liminal space between the human, the vegetal, and the imaginary. She often evokes these forms as “bloomings” or “dream seeds,” subtle presences that carry both tenderness and quiet strength, rooted in her childhood memories while resonating with her current life in France.

A selection of her exhibitions includes: Flesh and Leaf, Sap and Seed, Galerie Bao, Paris, France, 2026; Flesh and Leaf, Sap and Seed, Asia Now, Galerie Bao, Paris, France, 2025; Et… Vlan!, Galerie du Haut Pavé, Paris, France, 2024; +6 Affinités, Bureau d’art et de recherche, Roubaix, France, 2023, SALO X, Salon Dessin Erotique, Paris, France, 2022, Utopia Land, Heritage Space, Hanoï, Vietnam, 2017, Sindikat Campusari, The Japan Foundation Asia Center,Jakarta, Indonesia, 2016, Giống-Không-Giống, Kebun Bibi, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 2015, Chòn-Chòn, Huế museum of Culture, Huế, Vietnam 2015, Tran8tate, Université d’Art de Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai, Thaïlande, Hue Mong Hue Mo, New Space Arts Foundation, Huế, Vietnam, 2014.